Trial begins in fatal bear attack on boy
By Melinda Rogers, The Salt Lake Tribune, February 7, 2011 [here]
A rustle disrupted the peaceful darkness of the campsite.
Jake Francom slept in a tent with his girlfriend in the early morning hours of June 17, 2007, when he first heard the noise. Then came the swipe, followed by sharp claws pressing his head to his pillow as he jolted awake. …
Francom shared his story of surviving a bear attack Monday on the first of a scheduled six-day trial in U.S. District Court in the case of 11-year-old Sam Ives. The boy’s family filed a $2 million lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service following his fatal mauling in 2007.
Sam camped with his mother, Rebecca Ives; stepfather, Tim Mulvey; and half-brother, Jack in a campground above the Timpanooke Recreation Area on the same day as Francom’s outing in 2007. After a night of roasting hot dogs around a campfire and nestling into the tent that Sam and Jack purchased for Mulvey as a Father’s Day present, a bear sliced through the shelter, dragged him down a trail and killed him.
Attorneys for Sam’s family argue that the U.S. Forest Service and the state’s Division of Wildlife Resources had a duty to warn the family there was a dangerous bear in the area and that it had attacked a site close to where they camped. They also believe the campground should have been closed until the bear was killed, which didn’t happen until after Sam died.
Francom’s testimony is key to their argument.
In court, Francom held up his partially shredded pillow as evidence to show Judge Dale Kimball. He testified he believes the same bear that swatted him in the head attacked Sam later in the day, just a mile from where Francom encountered him before dawn.
Francom testified he called dispatchers around 9:30 AM on June 17, four hours after he came face to face with the bear. A recording presented in court detailed a conversation between a dispatcher and Francom, and later a dispatcher and a Forest Service officer who told the dispatcher she would contact the proper officials to inform them about the bear attack and those people in turn would put any necessary safety precautions for the public into action.
Forest Service worker Carolyn Gosse never made those calls.
She testified Monday that she was flustered while at home with her two children when the Utah County Sheriff’s dispatcher called her with Francom’s report. She wrote his cell phone number down wrong and later couldn’t find working numbers for federal protection officers on-duty to pass on the bear attack information, she said.
Gosse was later fired. On the stand, she struggled to remember details, but acknowledged she didn’t make the phone calls she said she would. She instead worked on the assumption that the DWR was handling the case, since it involved an animal, she testified. …
Defense attorneys for the Forest Service are arguing the government is immune from litigation connected to the bear attack. … [more]