A man was eaten alive in a savage bear attack shortly after joking with his wife about being mauled to death. Retired railway construction worker Alexander Korneyev, 66, was picking up wild mushrooms at a forest in eastern Russia when a brown bear pounced on him.
Shortly before the attack, Alexander called his wife who was staying at the couple’s home in a nearby town. He told her: “I’m going to pick mushrooms. If I don’t call you again by 10 am, it means I’ve been eaten by a bear.”
Armed with only a penknife, he tried to fight off the beast but was unable to fend off the attack. The man was later found dead on a dirt track near Suluk village, 250 miles northeast of Khabarovsk, with “no single untouched spot” as the bear had eaten him alive.
The bear was later hunted down and shot with the victim’s remains still present in the bear’s stomach. The village, located 5,300 miles of Moscow, has never witnessed a bear attack before.
Locals have reported a rise in the number of bears roaming the area in recent weeks, with increased sightings across Siberia and the Far East of Russia, caused by raging wildfires and a shortage of prey for bears in some districts.
Authorities have put up signs warning residents against picking mushrooms or venturing out into the forest.
