''RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!''

At a northern B.C. hot spring, swimmers raced to save one another from a rogue black bear

- Lyn Hancock

HAVING DELIVERED THE last of his explosives to seismic crews working on the Alaska Highway, Ray Kitchen, a 56-year-old trucker from Fort Nelson, B.C., decided to stop off at the Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park. There, his 11-year-old daughter, Joline, and her friend Sarah, who were along for the ride, could enjoy a swim.

A tropical oasis in the boreal forest, just south of the Yukon-B.C. border, the hot springs are a popular tourist haven complete with campsites and a playground. It was August 14, 1997.

As Kitchen relaxed beside the springs, watching the girls play, terrified screams suddenly erupted from a part of the park called the Hanging Gardens, where plants cascade down a natural terrace. The sound jolted Kitchen to his feet.

He rushed along a rain-slicked boardwalk and up some wooden stairs to reach the gardens' viewing platform-and stopped, horrified. On the wooden structure, a huge bear straddled a teen boy beside the motionless form of a woman. Both were covered with blood from deep gashes in their swimsuit-clad bodies.

PATTI MCCONNELL HAD been driving north from Paris, Texas, for over a week, heading for Alaska to start a new life. The vivacious 37-year-old mother hoped to get a job there and raise her two kids, Kelly, 13, and Kristin, seven.

It had been a tiring trip, and the children were delighted when McConnell turned off the Alaska Highway and into the Liard River park.