Victoria Lytle was on her way down from a hike in July when she heard barking. She was in a popular part of the trail system on the Anchorage Hillside, and assumed it was just someone’s dog.

“Turns out that bears bark, too,” Lytle said, going on to describe the mauling that nearly killed her.

“I saw her, I still can see her coming right at me. Brown bear. Knocked me down … I do remember laying there and being chewed on, trying to play dead. She ran off. And I was furious,” Lytle said. “I just thought, ‘She’s ruined my day.'”

Lytle spoke at a small event Tuesday in the Anchorage Fire Department station that dispatched personnel to find and save her this summer. She had not previously reconnected with any of the emergency responders involved in her rescue, nor shared her story publicly.

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