Lost's Bear Trap Tech Is Far From Reality (2024)

If you thought Rousseau was the frontrunner in the Craziest Island Lady contest, you should see Claire. Last night's episode of Lost, "The Lighthouse," made perfectly clear that the dearly-departed mad French woman has nothing on our favorite Island mommy, who is capturing and killing Others left and right because she believes they have her son. Unfortunately for Jin, he ran right into one of Claire's steel jaw bear traps, which snapped around his ankle. When she gets him out of the trap and he tries to walk, there's a cracking noise—and Jin falls down and blacks out.

Though the use of steel jaw bear traps is illegal, they're still made as collectors items. Bear traps consist of two steel jaws, two leaf springs and a trigger in the middle, usually a round pan. When an animal steps onto the trigger, the jaws snap shut on its leg; the animal is unable to escape. The more the animal struggles, the more the trap's springs tighten the jaw. C-clamps are needed to set and open up the trap.

"If you step in one, for sure, it is going to hurt," Rich Butera of Oneida Victor Animal Traps, which manufacturers bear traps. "Depending on how big you are, the initial hit could definitely crack something. Will it chop off your foot? No."

Popular Mechanics sent Butera a photo of the trap used in the episode, and he says the scenario is highly unlikely due to the size of the trap: It's far too small to get someone at the ankle. "You might catch a shoe, but you'd never be able to get the leg in there that high," Butera says. "You'd need to get your foot in there, angle it and then set the trap up." Jin's leg also wouldn't be that bloody.

What's more, you'd never be able to use a piece of rebar to pry open a real bear trap, as Claire does in the episode. "That is not going to happen," Butera says. "I weigh 220 pounds, and I can stand on one foot and jump up and down and I bet I wouldn't be able to move it more than 2 inches." The reason it works for her, Butera says, is because there's no tension in the springs. "That spring is fully collapsed. It's not touching the jaws anywhere, which is what puts the tension in the trap."

Tom Parr of the North American Trap Collectors Association agrees. "No, it would never work," he says. "It depends on the size of the trap, but if it's an actual bear trap, you can't physically step on that spring and get it to go down. It takes more leverage." He thinks the bear trap was made especially for the production of Lost. "The jaws look hefty, but the springs look real thin," he explains. "I bet you it doesn't have a real heavy power. You would not want a real one on your leg."