Article Contributed on: 8/8/2008 11:50:37 AM
An Oregon man camping near the northeast entrance to Yellowstone was attacked by a grizzly bear a couple of weeks ago and brought to
West Park Hospital.
The media frenzy started at about 9 a.m. with a call from the Cody Enterprise, the local newspaper, asking for information. Because of federal privacy laws under
HIPPA (warning -- the
summary is 23 pages long), I couldn't even acknowledge whether or not a person attacked by a bear was admitted.
So I went up to our Med/Surg floor to meet with the guy and talk to him about how he wanted to handle the media. Luckily, he was very agreeable to telling his story and signed a waiver for me to release his information and be interviewed.
So I set up an interview and a photo for the Enterprise. By the time I had returned, I had calls from the Montana AP, the Billings NBC affiliate, the Billings Gazette and the CBS Early Show.
As the story got out on the wire, I began receiving calls from TV, radio and print media in Oregon, where the man is from.
In the end, I spent the whole day returning phone calls and updating the media. It was pretty exciting. And when he was released, he did an interview with the Early Show and gave the hospital and his surgeon a nice national plug.
If you are curious about the story, here are some articles:
CBS Early Show
article and
interview.
The
Rocky Web site picked up the initial AP story (for the record, I believe I said something like, "He's fine, considering what he's been through." But it's not a big deal).
The Billings NBC affiliate, KULR-8
story (with a video interview embedded).
The Cody Enterprise's
story.
A
story from The Oregonian.
The Billings Gazette's
story.
There are plenty more papers, sites, etc., the AP story ran in and more stories out there, but there are too many track them all down.
Denouement:
The grizzly was captured and instead of being killed was sent to a Washington state research facility.
The campgrounds, which were closed after the attack,
have since been reopened.