Juno, Alaska

[Drunk Monk]

63-year-old Japanese man fights off bear with karate
11:03 a.m. ET


ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images

Most people don't respond to charging bears by fighting back. Yet rather than run from a snarling Asian black bear, one Japanese man decided to put his karate skills to the ultimate test.

Atsushi Aoki, 63, was fishing in the mountains when the bear attacked him. "The bear was so strong, and it knocked me down," Aoki told Tokyo Broadcasting System. Aoki took up a karate fighter stance, putting his right fist in front of him, and punched at the bear's eyes, which made the beast retreat.

"I thought it's either 'I kill him or he kills me,'" Aoki said. After fending off the bear, he was able to get back to his car and drive to the hospital to treat the wounds on his head, arm, and leg.

"[Aoki] drove himself to the hospital and even remembered to grab the fish that he had caught," a police officer told Agence France-Presse. Jeva Lange