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Minnesota Teen Survives Wolf Attack

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Aug 28, 2013 11:58 AM EDT

A 16-year-old Solway boy was recently attacked while camping at the West Winnie Campground on Lake Winnibigoshish located in north central Minnesota run by the U.S. Forest Service. Although the teenaged boy survived the attack, he did not come out of it unscathed. Noah Graham is now at home recovering from both physical scars and most likely some mental scars as well.

Graham was camping at the facilities with a group of friends from church. At around 4:00 a.m., Graham was by the beach getting ready to go to sleep right outside of a tent within the campground.  Graham was with his teenage girlfriend when, out of nowhere, a 75-pound male grey wolf crept up on him and bit into Graham's skull with no signs of letting Graham go easily.

"The wolf just came up behind Noah, he didn't hear anything, and it just grabbed him by the back of the head and wouldn't let go," Scott Graham, Noah's father said according to CBS News. "He had to physically pry the jaws of the wolf open...to get it off of him. And once he got it off of him and he was up, the wolf stood there growling at him. And he had to shout at it and kick at it to get it to go away."

The teenager was brought to Bemidji hospital where he was treated and monitored for several hours. Graham suffered a four-inch laceration by his skull, which required 17 staples to close up. He also has puncture wounds behind his left ear. He was also treated for potential rabies. 

According to officials from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), this is the first ever-confirmed attack of a human being by a gray wolf located in Minnesota. Based from previous records, Col. Ken Soring, the enforcement director for the DNR stated that the attack was very shocking. Shortly after the attack, the campgrounds were temporarily shut down. Trappers working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture have since captured the wolf, also known as a timber wolf. The wolf has been shot and killed in order to test it for rabies at the University of Minnesota veterinary diagnostic laboratory.

The initial examination of the lone wolf revealed that he had a deformed jaw. Since wolves typically do not like to come into contact with humans, officials reasoned that this wolf in particular might have had difficulty catching prey and thus, resorted to a young teenager for food. However, until more information comes along, the cause of the attack is still unknown. 

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