Bear Kills 19-Year-Old Girl on Jepii Mici Trail in the Bucegi Mountains

A 19-year-old girl who was attacked by a bear on Tuesday while she was hiking on the Jepii Mici trail in Bucegi was found dead. The bear was killed after it also attacked the rescuers.

Salvamont Prahova announced that the mission to recover the lifeless body has ended. It will be taken to the Forensic Medicine Service for the necropsy. Judicial sources told mass media that the girl killed by the bear was 19 years old and was from Iasi, but had a floating visa for the city of Bucharest.

The bear that, on Tuesday afternoon, attacked and killed a tourist on a trail in the Bucegi Massif, was shot. The decision was taken in the conditions in which the animal attacked the rescuers several times who are trying to recover the body of the 19-year-old young woman.

The rescuers canceled, on Tuesday evening, the mission of extracting the body of the deceased tourist with the help of a helicopter after she was attacked by a bear on Jepii Mici in Bucegi.

“After carrying out the aerial survey of the area, the decision was made to cancel the aerial extraction mission. The land descent of the deceased person will continue”, informed Salvamont Prahova.

Initially, this variant of the extraction of the body by helicopter was taken into account to shorten the recovery time of the victim and not to expose the mountain rescuers to potential attacks by the bear that is still nearby.

“We were informed that a tourist was attacked by a bear on the Jepii Mici trail, near Valea Spumoasa. An intervention team from Salvamont Prahova moved to the area and, a short time ago, they abseiled down the valley floor, where they found the victim, unfortunately deceased. The recovery operation is extremely difficult, due to the rugged terrain and the continued presence of the bear, which is approximately 10-15 m from the mountain rescuers,” says Salvamont Prahova.

The tourist who saw the whole event and called 112 was picked up by the mountain gendarmes and brought down to Buşteni.

“Following two 112 calls, which signaled that a female person was being attacked by a bear on the Jepii Mici route, a mountain gendarme patrol moved to the indicated area. One of the callers was identified, a man who is out of any danger. From discussions with him, it seems that the female person was dragged by the bear to an area where he could no longer see what was happening to the victim. At this moment, the gendarmes together with workers from Salvamont cadre is trying to find the woman in order to give her help”, previously transmitted the County Inspectorate of Gendarmes Prahova.

According to the data communicated at that time, the caller told the rescuers that the victim was dragged by the wild animal, so that he lost her from his visual range.

Shocking details of the young woman crying for help

Shocking information appears in the case of the 19-year-old girl killed be the bear. The tragedy unfolded live, with 112 dispatchers on the phone, because both the girl and her friend had called, in parallel, to ask for help. The intervention also deeply affected the mountain rescuers: “It was something terrible! We have not faced such a serious situation in the last 10-15 years”, the representatives of Salvamont Prahova told Digi24.ro.

The first call to 112 was made on Tuesday afternoon by the girl’s boyfriend. He told the Salvamont dispatcher that they are on the Jepii Mici trail in the Bușteni Mountains and that they are very scared because they are being chased by a bear.

“The dispatcher on call gave them some useful advice, how to behave in the presence of the bear. They followed the advice, but unfortunately they did not escape the presence of the wild animal”, said Dan Banu, head of Salvamont Prahova. Almost simultaneously, the 19-year-old also called 112.

“She was terrified… you can tell, she was screaming: ‘The bear is getting closer and closer!'” says Dan Banu, head of Salvamont Prahova.

A few tens of seconds later, the conversation ended abruptly, as the young woman had fallen prey to the bear’s claws. “Everything happened live, the 112 dispatcher was on the phone and the young man was shouting that they were being attacked by a bear and that he had taken the girl. It was something terrible! He told us that the bear grabbed the girl by one leg and was dragging her after he and, at some point, he didn’t see what he did with her. The bear dragged her from the path and threw her 120 meters into the valley,” says Dan Banu, head of Salvamont Prahova.
Arriving at the scene of the tragedy, the mountain rescuers rappelled 120 meters into the valley, but the 19-year-old woman was already dead. The bear was next to her and jumped to attack the rescuers as well.

The Minister of the Environment announces measures: Bears will be euthanized or shot

Mircea Fechet, the Minister of the Environment, is considering an order on prevention and intervention quotas to regulate the number of bears that can be shot to prevent attacks on people.

“I send my condolences to the victim’s family. I can’t even imagine the drama they are going through and I wish them strength in these difficult times. I have also been informed of this tragedy and indeed, as I have said in the past, I believe that the duty we have is to protect nature, to protect biodiversity, but above all, to protect people’s lives, because nothing is above human life.

For this reason, a year ago, when I came to the ministry, I submitted an order that finally regulated the number of bears that can be shot, that this is the word that we should use to prevent attacks or to intervention in case of attacks.

And that order provided for a number of 500 copies, of which they were approved, as a result of the consultation process with other institutions, including the Romanian Academy, around 220 of the 500.

Today, according to experts’ estimates, we are talking about 8,000 copies. Probably, however, beyond this figure, which is extraordinarily high, we see every day a piece of news about a bear, whether it has arrived in a village, whether it has arrived in a city, whether it is on Transfăgărășan or generated a tragedy like the one in Bucegi”, said the minister.

Mircea Fechet claims that relocating bears does not produce results. “Managed means either shot or euthanized. Because we found that the method of relocation that we keep applying does not give any kind of results. And I say this because, today, I talked to the manager of the hunting fund within whose radius this tragedy happened, who told me that in recent years he relocated to other counties, to other hunting funds, to other areas over 100 of bears, only from the respective hunting fund. This means that relocation does not work. Relocation only means that you move the problem from one county to another county, from one city to another city or to the hunting fund,” the Minister of the Environment said.