Boy Mauled by Bear Recovering After Surgery to Repair Scalp : Outdoors: Teen-ager says camp counselor saved his life. Officials hunt for the animal, which may be diseased.

With bandages wrapped turban-like around his head, a 13-year-old boy who was mauled by a 200-pound black bear in the San Bernardino Mountains said Wednesday that he feared for his life and believed he would have been “turned into bear droppings” if he had not been rescued by a camp counselor.

Joshua Isaacs of Ojai was in good condition at Bear Valley Community Hospital after receiving 150 stitches during two hours of surgery to repair his scalp, which had been ripped by the bear’s teeth.

Smiling and cracking jokes from his hospital bed, the eighth-grade honor student said that even though the bear attack was terrifying, he would not be afraid to return to Camp Wasewagan, a popular youth camp in the Barton Flats area of San Bernardino National Forest.

Joshua was asleep in a sleeping bag on the ground a few feet from a camp counselor when the bear grabbed him shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday.

“I was lying in my sleeping bag and felt something on my chest. I thought it was a raccoon,” said the blue-eyed, 5-foot, 3-inch boy who weighs about half as much as the bear. “I could feel the teeth poking my head and sinking in. I felt the blood, so I started screaming.”

The emergency room doctor said the boy’s scalp was nearly torn off. He also suffered scratches on his face and on his back.

Two camp counselors also were bitten by the bear but their wounds were minor and they did not require hospitalization.

State Department of Fish and Game biologists said the bear’s attack is extremely unusual and said they hoped to kill the animal to perform a necropsy to determine why it behaved abnormally. One biologist speculated that it may have rabies, which can alter an animal’s behavior. Joshua and the two counselors have begun receiving rabies shots.

Wildlife officials vowed to stake out the campground until the animal is found.

“It will be a sunset-to-sunrise operation until we find him,” said Kevin Barry-Brennan, a state biologist who has been at the campground with two armed animal trackers since the attack. It’s important we catch this animal. It’s a public safety issue.”

In Tuesday’s attack, the bear walked over four or five young camp counselors as they slept on an outdoor platform before it bit Jason Kozleski, 23, of Boulder Colorado on the head and Suus Verharr, 19, an exchange student from the Netherlands, on the elbow. As the counselors screamed, the animal wandered about 75 feet away to where Joshua slept.

Counselor Njal Hansen, 20, of Denmark, who was sleeping a few feet away, heard the boy scream and kicked the grunting, crouched bear, thinking it was a raccoon. The bear whined and stood up and Hansen grabbed the boy and carried him to safety.

“He saved my life,” Joshua said at a news conference. “Otherwise I would have been turned into bear droppings.”

The boy, who hopes to become a zoologist, said he would return to the camp today to thank the staff. He said he plans to attend camp next year, as he has every summer for the last five years.

The boy speculated Wednesday that the bear attacked him because he was wearing the same clothes he wore while washing dishes in the dining hall and that they may have smelled of food.

The animal, he added, “might have been sick or something so it’s not completely his fault, but he shouldn’t be going around eating kids just because he’s sick.”

Two animal trackers, equipped with rifles and accompanied by six bloodhounds, are helping in the search for the bear. The hounds could not pick up its trail after the attack because heavy rains obliterated the bear’s tracks. Bait and special sensors have been placed in the nearby woods.

“At this point we don’t know where to look,” Brennan said, “but as soon as we hear a report that a bear is spotted in this area, we’ll be there.”

Because the bear will be hard to identify, the trackers said they may have to shoot any bear sighted near the campground to ensure the campers’ safety. One tracker said he believes the animal is still in the area.

“But you can’t outguess a bear. Each bear is different and this one isn’t afraid of people. He’s aggressive enough to try to scalp a kid,” said Joel Shows, who tracked animals for the federal government for 26 years before recently retiring.

Although most of the children at the camp Tuesday left because their two-week stint ended that day, about 160 others ages 5 to 17 resumed hiking and other daytime activities Wednesday after Fish and Game officials told them it was safe.

Until the bear is found, however, children and counselors will sleep inside the dining hall, said camp director P.J. Wade.

Some counselors, however, are still worried.

“My mom made me promise that I wouldn’t walk up the hill tonight. Like I really would!” said Andrea Moore, 18, a counselor from Sacramento.

At least 300 bears live in the San Bernardino National Forest and the population is thriving this year because the wet winter created a large crop of berries, one of their main foods.