I wrestled a bear that scalped me and crushed my ribs – but I knew exactly what to do to survive

A MAN who wrestled a bear that scalped his head and crushed his ribs revealed how he knew exactly what to do to survive.

Andreas Kieling, 63, from Germany, found himself in the midst of the bloody attack by the beast while recording rare birds in Romania.

The wildlife filmmaker came face-to-face with the vicious brown bear as it stood just six metres in front of him in the wilderness.

But when Andreas realised that the predator was on the verge of attacking him, the man rammed the tripod base of his camera into the bear's mouth to defend himself.

But the filmmaker was unsuccessful as the bear bit him in the ribs and caught him in the lung area.

In the near-fatal attack, the mighty beast scaled Andreas' head - leaving it wounded and bloody.

Taking to Instagram after the horror incident, the 63-year-old wrote: "If I talk about it today, I see myself privileged. I may be the only person in the world who has survived a bear attack and can still talk about it properly.”

He reports that 18 out of 24 bear attacks in this region are fatal.

Andreas also revealed to his fans the tricks he used for surviving the nightmare attack while calling the pain he experienced "unbelievable".

“I was able to protect my neck when it was on top of me. If he had caught that, that would have been it,” he told .

The trick was not to faint from the pain - and above all not to scream.

“When bears fight among themselves, they quickly react. When one submits, the other quickly lets go of him. That was my luck.”

Following the attack, Andreas called the scars left behind a "real man-versus-wild tattoo" while describing how the bear's fangs penetrated right through to his bone.

This comes after two women were mauled by dingoes at a tourist hotspot in Australia, just weeks after a 10-year-old boy was dragged into the water by the wild dogs.

They were among seven adults who were circled by a dingo at Eli Creek before it pounced.

A Costa Rican footballer was also devoured by a crocodile while bathing in a river as the beast was spotted with his body between its jaws.