KITAAKITA, Japan >> Japanese confectioner Keiji Minatoya’s brush with death began when he lifted the shutter of his garage and came face to face with a black bear waiting on the other side.

“We locked eyes in silence,” he said, staring into the outbuilding beside his shop in rural Kitaakita in northern Japan where he had unwittingly trapped the apex predator. “I thought I was done for.”

The bear pinned him down and mauled him, leaving deep gashes across his face, bite marks along his arm and torso, and nearly scalping him before running off. Emergency services airlifted Minatoya 37 miles to Akita city to save his life.

“While it was on me, there was this terrifying roar, the sound of a wild animal. Its mouth was right here,” the 68-year-old said, pointing to his ear. “That sound is burn

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