A Yukon woman died from a deflected bullet fired by her husband trying to kill a grizzly bear that was mauling her outside their home, a coroner's report said Wednesday.
The report said Claudia Huber's husband, Matthias Liniger, fired several rounds at the bear, which was on top of Huber near their home in Johnson's Crossing, Yukon, in October 2014.
The bear was shot twice and died, but investigators found a third bullet ricocheted off a nearby tree and struck Huber in the chest.
Liniger tells the CBC that the release of the coroner's report this week has brought him closure. "I had two choices," he says. "Either I go into the woods and leave myself to the wolves or I move on. And, Claudia is a person who would have kicked my butt and said, 'You'd better move on.'" The coroner tells the CBC that there was an "absolute, catastrophic collision of events" that day and Liniger did the right thing by opening fire, because the grizzly bear would not have stopped the attack otherwise. Huber tried to play dead during the attack. The coroner says that was the wrong thing to do during a predatory attack, where fighting back is the best response.
The report said Claudia Huber's husband, Matthias Liniger, fired several rounds at the bear, which was on top of Huber near their home in Johnson's Crossing, Yukon, in October 2014.
The bear was shot twice and died, but investigators found a third bullet ricocheted off a nearby tree and struck Huber in the chest.
Liniger tells the CBC that the release of the coroner's report this week has brought him closure. "I had two choices," he says. "Either I go into the woods and leave myself to the wolves or I move on. And, Claudia is a person who would have kicked my butt and said, 'You'd better move on.'" The coroner tells the CBC that there was an "absolute, catastrophic collision of events" that day and Liniger did the right thing by opening fire, because the grizzly bear would not have stopped the attack otherwise. Huber tried to play dead during the attack. The coroner says that was the wrong thing to do during a predatory attack, where fighting back is the best response.