Writer Sought Solitude in Cave to Meet Deadline; Met Bear, Found Death (Obituaries)
Tom Hansen (age 42) attempted to write the final lines of his book in a bear cave, then died. Friends say he thought his beard would protect him.
CHANDLER, AZ — An unemployed systems engineer and aspiring fantasy/litRPG author, Tom Hansen was heavily focused on his NaNoWriMo writing deadline which he had set for December 8th, 2018. Hansen decided he needed to escape to the wilderness to focus on his writing after a number of writing conferences cut into his tight schedule of video games and hand yoga.
Last week, Hansen told friends and family he was heading to the Kaibab Forest in his home state of Arizona. Despite warnings that bears in the area had wiped out all human life in a 300-mile radius, Hansen said he believed his enormous beard would protect him. When asked how that works, Tom responded he doesn’t know the science but it worked for Grizzly Adams, a fictional TV character.
Michael T. Carrillo, Hansen’s cousin, said in their last text exchange, Tom had told him that he found a cave and was going to go inside to finish his writing. “The distractions outside of the cave were too much for him. Birds, squirrels, rabbits thumping their feet. He needed absolute solitude,” Carrillo told reporters.
According to rangers who found pieces of Hansen strewn about Kaibab forest, he had written only two sentences when a bear found him in the cave, bit into the back of his neck and began shaking him wildly until he fell apart like a warm dinner roll. Body parts were found up to four miles from the kill site.
Hansen’s recovered notebook read, “The orc army ascended the mountain with the smell of sulfur in their nostrils — A bear just came in. If I die, I leave everything to my two cats.” The entry was dated December 8th.
Hansen’s amassment of debt and bad credit will be left with his two pet cats.
Hansen had nine novellas to his credit, including the “Korrigan Chronicles” series and the recently released “Frost Fervor Concordance” trilogy. Born December 13, 1975, he was 6’6” tall. What’s left of him will be buried in his hometown of Chandler, Arizona.
Hansen is survived by his wife, Jennifer, four children, and two cats who are now bankrupt.
As for that NaNoWriMo deadline, “We’re pretty clear on our website. The deadline is November 30th. He pushed it to December 8th, then got killed by a bear. That’s a hard fail,” said Grant Faulkner, Exec. Director at NaNoWriMo.
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