Summary:
Hats off to these brave hearts of the Indian Army!!! I found four video clips of a daring rescue of a bear by Indian Army Bravehearts on the chilling heights of the great Himalayas. I am taking the liberty of converting those into one single video and share the guts of our soldiers!😊
The story behind the above video is as under.
– Mool Mantra (Col. Mool Bhargava)
The nosey bear ( author anonymous)
This grizzly bear family visited us at T2 post often. Earlier only during nights. We started keeping food for the family. Their confidence in us built over a period and they started coming during the day too. This bear was a cub about a yr old. It visited with his mother but after about 6 months the mother left the baby to fend for itself.
When deserted the baby bear started roaming alone but it had problems coming near our post. The dogs in the post wouldn’t let it come close. When we saw this we began leashing the dogs. Baby bear’s confidence grew and it came close. We named him Bahadur after the coys name – Bahadur coy.
For a few days we couldn’t see Bahadur. One day, one of the posts which was cut off due to 60 feet of snow, reported that Bahadur was roaming with a tin can around his head with his head stuck in it. Perhaps the bear had got nosey with the ration 15 Kg tin can.
The isolated post was about 800 metres from my coy HQ at T2. I thought of reporting the Nosey Bear to the CO and plans to rescue it. CO probably would have no go with rescue of the animal by endangering lives of troops. I took 6 boys with me and went to rescue the bear, it’s not that I wasn’t concerned about the boys’ safety but I went. The bear was also family.
When we reached the place the bear was roaming with the tin can around its neck, over a cornice and without food. It was circling over the cornice. (Cornice is an overhanging mass of hardened snow at the edge of a mountain precipice). Basically a cornice is a false extension of ground made by hard snow over a period of time and it can’t take more weight. It could break off and can lead to an avalanche.
It was very difficult to go close to the bear to rescue it. I directed the lightest boy from my group and briefed him to go close to the bear and tie the rope around his neck. We tied a rope to this boy’s waist to pull him in case the cornice broke.
The boy was nervous to get close to the bear. After about over three mins, I decided to rescue the bear on my own. I approached the bear on my knees and pulled him out of the cornice as gently and quickly as possible to avoid breaking the cornice.
After bringing the bear to safety we tied it with ropes to take it to our T2 post where we could release him after removing the tin can. It was sort of surgery to cut the tin can without damaging the ears and neck of the bear. We gave food to him and released him after taking all safety precautions.
When we released him it didn’t go for a good three hours. But after that it became part of my coy. Whenever we shouted his name – Bahadur, it always appeared from nowhere. It still comes to the post for food.
This video was published on Nov 22, 2024
~ 10 min
Content Source/Owner: Mool Mantra