Heroine & horse Tonk to appear on national TV

Heroine & horse Tonk to appear on national TV

Heroine & horse Tonk to appear on national TV, A Whitefish woman and the horse that helped her scare a charging grizzly bear away from an 8-year-old Illinois boy are booked on the Late Show with David Letterman next week.Montana woman saves boy from grizzly . Erin Bolster was guiding a group of eight people on a trail ride near Glacier National Park on July 30 when a white-tailed deer followed closely by a grizzly bear crossed their path. Seven horses turned and went back down the trail while the boy's horse, Scout, ran into the timber, becoming the bear's next target. Swan Mountain Outfitters,

"The deer peeled off and joined the horses sprinting down the trail," Bolster said. "So the bear just continued running right past me. I'm not sure the bear even knew the roles had changed, but now it was chasing a horse instead of a deer."

The boy's father was unable to get his horse to turn around to help his son.

"The last thing he saw over his shoulder as his horse ran away was the grizzly chasing his boy," Bolster said.

Bolster was able to get her horse, Tonk, to follow the bear.

"The boy was bent over, feet out of the stirrups, clutching the saddle horn and the horse's neck," she said.

She said she screamed and yelled, but the bear was growling and snarling and focusing on Scout.

"As it tried to circle back toward Scout, I realized I had to get Tonk to square off and face the bear," she said. "We had to get the bear to acknowledge us. We did. We got its attention — and the bear charged. Heroine & horse Tonk to appear on national TV, late show with david letterman,

"So I charged at the bear," she told The Spokesman-Review. "I had no hesitation, honestly. Nothing in my body was going to let that little boy get hurt by that bear."

She and Tonk had to charge at the bear three times before they finally hazed it away.

"The boy had landed in some bear grass and was OK," she said.

Bolster pulled the boy up on Tonk, grabbed Scout's lead and headed down the trail toward the rest of the group.

The boy "was fine, and I got my biggest tip of the season," Bolster said.

Tonk — a cross between a quarter horse and a draft horse — had been leased by Swan Mountain Outfitters for the summer.

Source: greatfallstribune