Schooner said a lot of people tried to halt the attack but one male teacher \u201cgot the whole brunt of it\u201d and was among the people taken by helicopter from the scene.<\/p>\n
She said some children were hit with bear spray as the teachers fought off the bear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank the teachers for their heroism,\u201d B.C. Premier David Eby said at a press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to send my heart out to the parents and kids and loved ones and everyone who has been injured and is in hospital right now, and I hope for their quick recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schooner said Alvarez was limping and that his shoes were muddy from running for safety.<\/p>\n
While her son was \u201ctraumatised\u201d, she said his thoughts were with his classmates. \u201cHe keeps crying for his friends, and oh my goodness, right away he started praying for his friends,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Paramedics provided emergency medical treatment to four patients and took them to hospital, the Provincial Health Services Authority told Reuters by email.<\/p>\n
Two patients were in a critical condition and two in a serious condition. A further seven people were cared for at the scene but did not require transportation to hospital.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
Corporal Madonna Saunderson, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, described the victims\u2019 injuries as \u201cvery serious at the very least\u201d, The Canadian Press reported. Authorities have not yet disclosed the ages or genders of the pupils.<\/p>\n
The group was from the Acwsalcta School, run by the Indigenous Nuxalk Nation, which was closed on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to know what to say during this very difficult time. We are so grateful for our team and our students,\u201d the school said in a Facebook post, adding that counselling services had been made available.<\/p>\n
The Nuxalk Nation chief and council said in a statement on Friday that the bear attack had affected children and so many loved ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain in close contact with the families, and we understand that those who were injured are receiving the highest level of care,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
BCCOS said the bear had not yet been captured.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers are armed. Remain indoors and off the highway,\u201d Nuxalk Nation said in a social media post.<\/p>\n
BCCOS inspector Kevin Van Damme told The New York Times it was \u201cextremely rare\u201d for any bear to attack a large group of people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really need to stress how dangerous this situation is with this bear at large,\u201d Van Damme said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schooner said a lot of people tried to halt the attack but one male teacher \u201cgot the whole…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-304953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}