{"id":90120,"date":"2025-10-20T13:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/90120\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T13:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:53:12","slug":"kiwis-arm-fully-snapped-in-japanese-bear-attack-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/90120\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiwi\u2019s arm \u2018fully snapped\u2019 in Japanese bear attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

After hundreds of hours hiking, running and exploring mountains and forests over the three years Halloran has called Japan<\/a> home, he had never before seen a bear.<\/p>\n

He slowly started to back off, thinking with relief that the bears were hurrying away from the trail. But one of them came running back out, straight towards him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, crap. Here we go,\u201d Halloran thought as he made himself as big as possible, the panic starting to build.<\/p>\n

Seeing how quickly the bear was galloping towards him, Halloran knew he should not run. He started to scream at the top of his lungs, trying to scare it away.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I realised the bear was gonna get me, I used my right arm to shield my face,\u201d he said. The bear lunged for him, and its mouth met Halloran\u2019s arm.<\/p>\n

He tumbled back as the bear bit down, shattering his arm bones immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to think back on that moment,\u201d Halloran said. \u201cI was screaming a lot, in fight or flight, thinking, \u2018well, this is either gonna go really, really bad, like it\u2019s gonna let go and run away, or it\u2019s just gonna keep going\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, I just gotta defend here, or like, this is it, the worst case scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bear let go of Halloran\u2019s arm and went for his leg, scratching and puncturing his calf muscles.<\/p>\n

\"BearBear scratches in Halloran’s leg after the attack. Photo \/ RNZ<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, I\u2019m not really sure how, but it kind of just backed off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Terror and adrenaline pumping through his entire body, Halloran managed to stand up. \u201cI was looking at the bear, like, \u2018S**t, is it gonna come at me again?\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He looked down. His leg was bleeding, and his arm was \u201cfully snapped\u201d and completely out of shape, held together only by the support of his rain jacket.<\/p>\n

As the bear ambled off into the bushes, Halloran started running in the other direction, reaching for his phone. Dialling one-handed, his wife Chisato Hayashi picked up.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore she could get a word in, I said: \u2018Get in the car right now. I\u2019ve been attacked by a bear. My arm\u2019s just broken,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Luckily, Halloran was only a five-minute drive from home. When Chisato pulled up, he flopped into the passenger seat, and they sped down the road to where an ambulance was waiting.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy then, the adrenaline was wearing off, and it got really painful,\u201d Halloran said. The nearest city hospital, in Joetsu, was a 40-minute drive away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI probably had no pain relief for an hour and a half or more after the accident,\u201d he said. \u201cChisato told me later, I had no colour in my face at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halloran is recovering this week in Joetsu Hospital after his third surgery. This four-hour procedure involved a hip bone graft. His arm had been broken in three places by the bear, with a chunk taken out of the bone, just from one bite.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 36 hours after that surgery were pretty rough. You store a lot of emotion in your hips, and it was really really painful,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m starting to come back, I\u2019ve started to do rehab on my hand and am trying to stand up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was under general anaesthesia at that time, but just local for the first two surgeries, where he could view a live X-ray to watch the surgeons piece his arm back together and insert a mechanism to clean inside the bone preventing infection.<\/p>\n

\"Halloran'sHalloran’s X-rays after the operation.Photo \/ RNZ<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realise the kind of sheer power of a black bear,\u201d Halloran said. \u201cLike it\u2019s not even a brown bear, the other type of bear here in Japan, but it still was a pretty substantial bite. It did a lot of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

He now has two metal plates in his arm and four nurses a day checking in on him. His mum flew over from New Zealand, loaded with Whittaker\u2019s chocolate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reward myself with chocolate whenever I have to give blood or get a dressing change,\u201d he said. He is not yet brave enough to look at his arm, but reckons there will be some decent scars.<\/p>\n

Friends and family have been in disbelief at hearing Halloran\u2019s tale. \u201cA lot of people have been like, \u2018Nah, you\u2019re joking\u2019,\u201d Halloran said.<\/p>\n

But he is not joking \u2013 and even made the local news.<\/p>\n

Japan is seeing an increasing number of bear attacks, especially in Niigata prefecture, where Halloran lives.<\/p>\n

Just last week, in Numata, Gunma, a 1.4m bear strolled into a supermarket and attacked two men. Another bear swiped at a Spanish tourist waiting at a bus stop in Shirakawa-go.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve even sighted bears in Myoko town since my incident,\u201d Halloran said.<\/p>\n

Bear attacks tend to increase in autumn before hibernation, yet a lack of their usual beech nut fodder because of climate change could be driving them into townships.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a pretty good running community here,\u201d Halloran said. \u201cA lot of them always talk about bear sightings and I\u2019d kind of joked about it with them, like, \u2018Oh, I still haven\u2019t seen one\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halloran always runs with a bear bell, playing music out loud. \u201cI never have headphones in because of bears,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But on that Saturday, he was running next to a river, the water supplied by the 55m Naena Falls nearby.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bears wouldn\u2019t have been able to hear me, it\u2019s really noisy in that section,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With three months\u2019 recovery on the cards, Halloran said he was gutted about the timing of the bear attack. He was out in the mountains, training, running, doing something he loved to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s the feeling of how a surfer might feel after getting bitten by a shark and then wanting to get back into the water,\u201d he said. \u201cThis fear is a first kind of feeling for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knows there will be a lot of trauma to unpack as his recovery unfolds, with the scene of the attack often replaying in his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t have any resentment of the situation. It\u2019s not really the bear\u2019s fault. It\u2019s just nature, and I was fortunate enough to get away; otherwise, things would be a bit different,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m feeling pretty grateful and pretty lucky to have gotten away from the situation, especially given the number of instances where people haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven people have died in bear attacks since April \u2013 the highest since 2006 when the data was first recorded. About 100 people have been injured.<\/p>\n

The recovery time is confronting, especially after the hip graft, restricting his movement even further. But Halloran is trying to stay in good spirits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m slowing down. Trying to look at life a lot differently. There\u2019s a bit of trauma there. But it\u2019s just something I\u2019m gonna have to work through.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, still very much \u201chorizontal\u201d, he\u2019s brushing up on his Japanese lingo, and reading Four Thousand Weeks, a book about our absurdly short lifespans.<\/p>\n

Snow season is on the horizon. Then, no doubt, he will be back running again next summer.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After hundreds of hours hiking, running and exploring mountains and forests over the three years Halloran has called…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15153,89,20206,25282,78,1036,807,67903,111,43,139,69,67902,3243],"class_list":["post-90120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-arm","tag-attack","tag-bear","tag-fully","tag-in","tag-japanese","tag-kiwis","tag-mythen","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-samantha","tag-snapped"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}