Not many people brawl with a bear and live to talk about it. Which makes John Chelminiak one of the lucky ones. On the night of September 17, Chelminiak was on a walk with his dogs outside of his family’s cabin in Wenatchee when he heard rustling in nearby bushes and the exhaled breath of a large animal.In a split second, a starved, skinny, female black bear was on top of the 57-year-old Bellevue Councilman. Chelminiak and the bear wrestled, with the hungry animal scratching and clawing at his face and eyes.King 5John Chelminiak says he’ll never forget the sound of the bear biting into his skull.”There were times when she was just clawing over the top, there were times when she was just biting,” he told King 5. “I just vividly remember being bitten on the head and the sound that that makes as her teeth were going into my head and running along the skull.”Blinded by the blood gushing from his head, Chelminiak managed to land one good knee into the bear. A miraculous shot that, for some reason, stopped the mauling.Chelminiak has undergone extensive reconstructive surgery since. He also lost his left eye as a result of the attack. But he is expected to make a full recover.