Grizzly’s Just Plane Unbearable

Pilot Ed Gurtler decided he was no match for a determined and hungry grizzly bear. So when he saw the animal tearing apart his Cessna 170 to get at 500 pounds of moose meat inside, Gurtler left. “As an old-timer once told me, you can always get a new airplane, but you can’t get a new pilot,” he said. Gurtler said he was returning to his plane on a sand bar in the Innoko River near Cripple, Alaska, when he heard a commotion. When he got closer, he shined his light on the plane and saw a big grizzly staring back. He fired a shot over the bear with no effect. The bear already had bent the plane’s fuselage by picking it up and slamming it down. When the bear ignored his shot, Gurtler said he retreated to his river boat and headed back to his homestead. The next morning, the 500 pounds of moose meat had been reduced to 200 pounds. Gurtler removed the remaining meat, but that didn’t discourage the bear, which returned, tearing up seats in the plane and in the boat. “Everywhere he could smell that moose meat, he went after it,” Gurtler said. He estimated that the bear did as much as $10,000 damage to the plane.

--Artificial heart surgeon Dr. William C. DeVries came to the aid of an off-duty police officer injured in a car crash. DeVries’ efforts possibly saved the life of Officer Willie Tingle, said Officer Gary Fields, a Jefferson County police spokesman. DeVries, who was passing by the accident scene near his home in Louisville, Ky., inserted a tube into the throat of the undercover narcotics detective to keep him breathing until he could be taken to a hospital. “It wasn’t that big of a deal,” DeVries said. “I just did what I was trained to do.” DeVries said the unidentified person who pulled an injured passenger from Tingle’s burning car was the real hero. Tingle, 37, was in serious condition at a hospital. One of his passengers was listed in critical condition and another was in serious condition. DeVries implanted the world’s first permanent artificial heart into Barney Clark on Dec. 2, 1982. Clark died on March 23, 1983.

--The Rev. Jimmy Harness is on the fast track these days. The pastor of the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Ardmore, Okla., has been spending his Saturday nights racing stock cars at Countyline Speedway near Meeker. “I’d always take in a stock car race if I could make it,” he said. “But I didn’t know that much about how to get involved in racing.” That changed last year when his son-in-law and son started racing, and Harness soon decided to make it a family affair.