An employee of the Kenai Princess Lodge in Cooper Landing was attacked and injured by a brown bear as she walked to work Tuesday morning, according to Alaska State Troopers and the resort's manager.
Danielle Compton, a 21-year-old Californian, was grabbed and dragged by the bear but fought furiously until it dropped her and ran off, troopers said.
Compton, of Valley Springs, was treated at Central Peninsula General Hospital in Soldotna for puncture wounds to her right leg and a scratch on the right side of her neck, and released.
"She's fine," trooper Kurt Walgenbach said late Tuesday afternoon from his office in Cooper Landing.
Walgenbach, who did not speak to Compton, and workers with the state Department of Fish and Game office in Soldotna, searched for the bear but did not find it.
Walgenbach found some tracks in the area that appeared fresh and presumably were those of the bear, but no other signs were found.
"I don't think there's a kill site up there," he said. "I'd say it's more or less (a sow with) cubs."
Compton did not see any cubs, said her boss Dan Michels, general manager of the lodge.
"We don't know of any provocation," Michels said. No one witnessed the attack, he said. Because of the danger of infection, he said, doctors were treating Compton's puncture wounds as serious, and she was told to visit a doctor today.
Compton did not return a message left with Michels late Tuesday afternoon. Fish and Game workers in Soldotna could not be reached, nor could troopers who interviewed her.
Compton lives in employee housing on the 46-acre resort site, about a quarter-mile from the lodge, according to Michels. She left her apartment for the walk to work about 8:45 a.m., he said.
According to Walgenbach, as Compton walked down a driveway from her door, she would have passed on her left a "pretty thick patch of woods" that extend down to the river. A little farther on the left is an RV park and the lodge's general store, and still farther and up a hill is the lodge, Walgenbach said.
"From what I understand, the bear came from that patch of woods on her left side," he said.
Compton was 50 to 100 feet from the employee housing and about the same distance from the RV park when the attack occurred, Michels said.
The woman is 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 100 pounds, according to Greg Wilkinson, a troopers spokesman in Anchorage. When she first saw the bear, she yelled at it and waved her arms, Wilkinson said.
"The bear charged, knocked her over, she kicked him in the chest and hit the bear in the nose and eyes," he said. "The good news is that he bit her leg, picked her up, but she kicked him until he dropped her."
When Michels was interviewed by phone, he said he had not had a chance to speak to Compton, but he believed the bear charged her, "swatted her once in the shoulder and neck area and knocked her down.
"She screamed, and the bear went up the embankment, and then came down again, then bit her in the calf," Michels said. Compton continued screaming and kicking the bear until it dropped her.
The lodge has just entered its shoulder season and some 60 rooms, or two-thirds of its capacity, were occupied, according to Michels. After the attack, lodge workers posted notices to alert guests and employees about the bear and offered a shuttle ride to the lodge for any guest or worker leaving an outlying room, he said.
The town of Cooper Landing also was alerted.
Although the lodge stands in bear country, no bruins had been spotted lately and nothing had happened to raise any alarms, Michels said.
Daily News reporter Peter Porco can be reached at pporco@adn.com or 257-4582.
