Father, 8-year-old son hurt in Tennessee bear attack

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (AP) — An 8-year-old Florida boy and his father were treated and released from a hospital after battling a black bear in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, officials said Tuesday.

Evan Pala and his father John Pala of Boca Raton were able to leave Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center on Monday evening within hours of the incident in the park, hospital spokeswoman Amanda Bradson said.

Park rangers later killed a young 55-pound male bear matching the description of the one in the attack.

Park spokesman Bob Miller said the bear approached the boy around 7:30 p.m. Monday while Evan was playing in a creek about 300 yards up Rainbow Falls Trail, a popular hiking trail about 2.5 miles south of Gatlinburg.

Miller said the bear attacked the boy, was driven off and came back a second time.

Finally, the father was able to drive the bear off with rocks and sticks, Miller said. The boy suffered cuts, scratches and some puncture wounds. The father received several cuts during the attack.

Rangers found the bear in a spot matching the father's description. When the bear acted aggressively toward them, they shot it. They found a child's shoe and a cap there believed to have belonged to the family.

The animal was taken to the University of Tennessee Veterinary Medical Center for a necropsy to establish that it was the bear that attacked the child, Miller said.

The 520,000-acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the North Carolina-Tennessee border. It is the most visited park in the country with more than 9 million visitors annually. It is home to about 1,600 black bears and borders the Cherokee National Forest, which has another 1,500 black bears.

Fatal encounters with black bears are rare. The North American Bear Center lists 60 people killed by black bears across North America since 1900, with 45 of those in Alaska or Canada.

But there have been two fatal attacks in eastern Tennessee: A Tennessee school teacher was killed in 2000 by a female bear and cub during a day hike in the Great Smokies and an Ohio family was attacked in 2006 in Cherokee National Forest, killing a 6-year-old girl and injuring her 2-year-old brother and mother.