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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.
"I didn't know if I had a bad hangover or if one of my friends was messing with me," said Francom, 30, of Saratoga Springs. "It happened really fast. All I seen was a big paw coming through."
A bear slashed through Francom's tent and snatched up his pillow. Francom screamed at a friend to get a gun.
By the time Francom made it out of the tent, the large, cinnamon-colored animal stared at him after plopping down about 50 yards away. The bear had already found Francom's mustard and salsa for a snack, and scattered other contents from a cooler around the ground. He ran off after Francom and his camping mates charged at the animal, throwing rocks.
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, Rebcecca 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 a.m. 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.
Representing Sam's family and the boy's biological father, Kevan Francis , attorney Allen Young criticized Gosse's response to Francom's call.
"You knew you had some responsibility to respond to this incident," Young said. "But you didn't call your supervisor to say 'I forgot the (federal protection officer's) number, can you send it to me so I can send them up to check out a bear attack?"
Gosse said she cared about public safety while she worked for the Forest Service, but said even if she had called others in law enforcement about Francom's bear encounter, the calls may not have changed the outcome of Sam's case.
Defense attorneys for the Forest Service are arguing the government is immune from litigation connected to the bear attack.
Attorney Amy Oliver said there is no proof that the bear that tromped through Francom's campsite is the same animal that attacked Sam, other than Francom seeing the bear on TV following news reports of Sam's death and believing it looked like the same cinnamon-colored bear he saw outside his tent.
She argued that the Forest Service couldn't have warned Sam's family about an imminent fatality, because officials had no idea that such an event could happen.
"How could the Forest Service warn them about something — a human fatality caused by a black bear —that had never happened in Utah before?"
The trial continues in federal court at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Family also has suit pending against state
The family of Sam Ives has a second lawsuit pending in Utah's 4th District Court. The family's attorneys are arguing 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 the site at which they camped. They also believe the campground should have been closed until the bear was killed.
Defense attorneys in the state case have contended the government has a duty to protect the public from being attacked by dangerous wildlife, but that duty does not mean the state can be held responsible for individuals who are attacked by bears or other vicious wildlife.
The family is seeking $550,000 in that lawsuit.