A helicopter rescues a man in Alaska who had been fighting a bear for a week

By Doha Madani - NBC News

An injured man in a remote Alaskan mining camp, with no one to turn to for help, was rescued Friday after defending himself for a week from fierce attacks by a hungry bear, authorities said.

The subject, who was not identified,

was seen waving his hands in distress

by the crew of a Kodiak Coast Guard helicopter flying over the area, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

[A young man takes control of the controls of a plane and tries to crash it in Alaska]

The ship's crew first saw a giant SOS sign on the roof of a hut where the man had made his camp.

They were patrolling the area from Kotzebue to Nome, but only spotted the man when they turned to fly over that area again.

A man's mining camp in Kodiak, Alaska, that was attacked by a bear Coastal Guard

He was rushed to the city of Nome for emergency medical attention.

He had an injured leg and a torn torso because a bear had attacked him a few days before.

"The man said the bear had returned to his camp to harass him every night for a week in a row,

" the Coast Guard said.

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It's unclear what type of bear attacked the man, but both browns and blacks are common in the state.

Alaska is home to 98% of the nation's brown bear population, according to the state's Department of Fish and Game.

Most of the attacks of bears are of browns

, because they are the largest and most aggressive.

The Kodiak are an endemic subspecies of the Kodiak Archipelago in Alaska, so it is likely that it was one.

Although there are also grizzly bears, another subspecies that inhabit the region.

[Ten seconds of terror: how a man survived the attack of a brown bear in Alaska]

American black bears, which are smaller than brown bears, are less likely to attack humans and are rarely aggressive towards people unless they protect their cubs.

Like many species, these animals face the problem of the loss of their habitat due to the expansion of human settlements and deforestation, according to the World Wildlife Fund.