Forging Resilience
Join us as we explore experiences and stories to help gain fresh insights into the art of resilience and the true meaning of success.
Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-hill-synergy-coaching
https://www.instagram.com/aaronhill_79/
Forging Resilience
26 Jeremy Evans: "I knew I was going to die..."
WARNING: Listener discretion is advised.
This episode contains the harrowing details of a traumatic grizzly bear attack and mentions a suicide attempt.
When the wilderness speaks, Jeremy Evans listens—but nothing could have prepared him for the day nature's ferocity answered back. In a candid and gripping conversation, Jeremy, a seasoned outdoorsman turned author, recounts the visceral terror of a bear attack during a remote sheep hunting trip in Alberta's mountains.
Jeremy describes the violent clash that pitted him against a grizzly's rage. Beyond the physical ordeal, he delves into the psychological aftermath, laying bare the complexities of mental health and the arduous journey of recovery.
His story is not just a chilling survival saga—it's a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit, the healing power of humor, and the strength found in family bonds.
His narrative is punctuated by moments of unexpected levity, like the echo of "Baby Shark" that propelled him forward, and leads into his purpose-driven initiatives, like the Grizzly Dude Fund.
Jeremy transforms his pain into advocacy, inspiring us all to rise from adversity. His journey is not merely about enduring the wild—it's about transforming trauma into a beacon of hope for others.
https://crowdfunding.ucalgary.ca/o/university-of-calgary/i/ucrowdfund/s/grizzly-dude
https://www.instagram.com/thegrizzlydude1/
https://www.grizzlydude.ca/
Thank you for tuning into Forging Resilience!
If you found value in today’s episode, it would mean the world if you could take a moment to leave us a review.
Your feedback helps us grow and reach more people looking to build their own resilience.
And don’t forget to hit that like and subscribe button so you never miss an episode packed with insights and inspiration.
Follow my social media accounts | LinkedIn | Instagram |
Click here for my monthly newsletter, mix of insights, reflections and questions. To share with other driven people like you, for your own insights and application.
Welcome to Forging Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Today, on Forging Resilience, we're joined by Jeremy Evans, who is the author of the book Mould fascinating and traumatic tale of the survivor of the bear attack that he underwent, including a failed suicide attempt and a 20-kilometer journey out of that situation with some horrific injuries. Mate, thank you very much for being here today. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Aaron. Thanks for inviting me on here.
Speaker 1:Give us a little bit of a snapshot of your life before the attack.
Speaker 2:Well, I started off as an outdoors person, loved to hunt and fish and traveled all over the place and lots of camping. One of my goals for the outdoors was to go on a cheap hunt and climb uh, climb some mountains. And living in here in Alberta, about a 45 minute drive for where I live, it's the remote wilderness and lots of mountains, so it's been a lot of time up in there. Um, family man, I got uh, I had uh got married at, you know, not really a young age 25, 26. And uh, really young age 25 26 and, uh, just more.
Speaker 1:Just a normal average jewel with a wife, and one have kids. Yeah, yeah, I've not met a comedian who's not spent lots of times outdoors in the mountains hunting or fishing. In some way shape or form it's, it's a national sport from from my perspective. I'm not sure it rings quite true or not, but I think it should be. Um so, in this particular give it.
Speaker 2:Give us a bit of an idea of what that day started off like for you so the day started off well, the night before, uh, getting all my gear packed up, being super excited, um, you know, you, you plan something for quite a while and, uh, I was super excited to go sheep hunting because, uh, three days before I found my ram, knew where he was, and so, just the anticipation day for opening day, and, uh, my plan was to get out there the day before sheep season, find my ram, follow him until he went to sleep and then, when he woke up in the morning, hopefully have a chance at him.
Speaker 2:So it started about 11 o'clock at night driving out to the place where I sheep hunt. It's about a three, four hour drive and I remember just getting out of my truck at about 2.30 in the morning and in the moonlight and taking my bicycle off, throwing the last little bits of pieces of my gear, my pack, um, and then just riding off into the moonlight down the trail to where I'm going to go sheep hunting. Um, it was something that I usually did and, uh, every year about that time that's when I was rolling out there for either a week to 10 day hunt by myself or with a buddy, and, um, I think it was just very routine, nothing, nothing out of the unusual yeah, is this an area that you'd been to before?
Speaker 2:yeah, this area I found about 16, 17 years prior to, and I was kind of like for 17 years I was religiously going out there looking for sheep. I knew that sheep were, but every time I saw somebody I'd go further back in. I just didn't like people. I just kind of wanted to be out there quiet.
Speaker 1:It's just a happy place. Yeah, yeah, escape from the world and connect with nature, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nice. When you're out there and you can't hear an airplane, you can't see anybody. There's nobody walking around, it's just you. Yeah, it's pretty nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine. And in terms of hunting sheep, what does that actually look like? What weapons are you using and how close do you get them? For those of us that don't hunt, give us a bit of an idea of how that would normally go.
Speaker 2:So sheep hunting is a lot of climbing up and down the mountains. You uh, first of all you had to find an area where the sheep hang out and then, uh, they're hard to spot. They're gray, gray animals on a gray rock face most of the time. So you get out there. Lots of sitting and waiting and looking, um, I mostly bow hunted sheep. I did bring a rifle with me just in case. If I saw one that was legal With a bow, anywhere between 15 to 40 meters is kind of arranged with a bow and then with a rifle you go out there to 300 to 600 meters is where I was comfortable at.
Speaker 2:But you know, you'd see sheep, you'd see rams, but the hard thing is to tell, is to judge them. Uh, you can't just shoot any sheep on the mountainside. Um, they have to have horns that are four fists in curl. Um, and it's very hard to tell, cause you gotta have the sheep squared here and you almost gotta use like a draw a line, take a picture and draw a line on their side of their head to make sure their horn passes past their eye like it's a very it's. It's. I've seen rams and I've seen what I, what people tell me were legal after the fact and I just it's not worth it to shoot one that's not legal.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, it's a challenge yeah, there's a lot of technical aspects, I guess, that a lot of us aren't aware of yeah, and a lot of studying.
Speaker 2:And now with digital, with having phones, you can take pictures with. You can take pictures in the spotting scope and then you could draw your line on the picture. Before you just had a piece of paper, you draw it on you like I don't know, he's close squint a bit?
Speaker 1:maybe a bit, and was there quite serious consequences then if you were found to be hunting sheep? That weren't?
Speaker 2:yeah, if you harvest if you harvested a ram that wasn't within legal specs, you'd lose the ram um five to twenty thousand dollar, uh fine. And then you lose your right to hunt for five or more years.
Speaker 1:You could um, so it wasn't really worth taking the risk and and give us a bit of a lead up to to the to the attack jeremy and so, yeah, right now there's about, uh, back to my sheep camps about 14 kilometer bike in.
Speaker 2:Uh, the first five or so kilometers is like an old two rut road where, uh, they still take horse and buggies down to bring in the camp. There's an outfitter that hunts in there and, uh, their camp is about five, six miles, sorry, five, six kilometers on this uh two rut road going in, and once you get to their camp the road ends and then it's, uh, basically a horse trail that rides all the way, all the way into the back of the mountains. Um, there's a trail, kind of meanders, across a creek, and a couple of years before this we had a major flood and it took out the, uh, the trail and the and the creek just spread all throughout the, out the, out the bush, and anyways, uh, you make your way along the creek bed and then up over a ridge and into the back into the mountains, and as you get further back in, the trail gets narrower and narrower and then it comes more like a game trail. Um, there's a couple of huge drainages you got to go down and they're steep enough that you get off your horse If you had horse and you walk it down there and uh, so I got to the last drainage and I started coming up that slowly with my bicycle and making and just being really slow, cause I know the sheep are usually, uh, directly across the mountain from me or further back into the bowl, and I just try not to make any movement.
Speaker 2:You know anything sudden it's about nine in the morning and at that time in the morning you can, the sun comes up over the mountains and you can see the shadows of the sheep on the hillside and so, uh, it's like the easiest way to see them. The sun comes over, you get this big, long, 20 foot shadow attached to them. So, coming up over the up over the drainage, and I spotted some sheep, um, and I got really excited, sitting along the edge of the tree line and there's a lot of willow brush in that spruce tree, small spruce trees, little willows. I'm just kind of sneaking my way through there watching the sheep. I'd stand there for 10 minutes glassing make sure I found where all of them are, make sure they're not noticing me and then I'd move 10 feet, I'd take you know, move 10 feet, wait for 10 minutes, move 10 feet.
Speaker 2:How far away? How far away were you then, at this, at this point, from the sheep? Uh, about three, four hundred yards. Okay, so they're definitely within, definitely within range. But you know, I couldn't hunt them that morning because, uh, it still is the day before sheep season and my goal I was just going to follow them back to where they bed down. Usually they bed down in the farther back bowl up high and my camps below um, where I mostly stayed and where the area I set my tent, I guess.
Speaker 2:And, uh, I got into a little bit thicker part of the brush and just stand there watching them. I took off my backpack cause, uh, you know, I spotted my rams and I was like, oh there they are, so super excited. Took off my backpack, there, leaning against my bike in front of me and had my elbows on the handlebars and I'm sitting there watching, watching the sheep. And, uh, and I stood up to stretch and had my binoculars, you know, I brought my binoculars down and I stretched and when I did that, I noticed this little brown thing right in front of me, literally less than 10 feet, I can almost touch it and it ran by and at first thought I was thinking it was, you know, a mule deer, because there's lots of them up there. But it was just small and it just I knew what it was like instantly, like I just just you're hoping it was a mule deer or something, but I it was. It was a grizzly bear cub.
Speaker 1:And in that split second I was thinking, oh, I'm kind of screwed like uh what is the bear threat like in in that area before you go into it, mate?
Speaker 2:um, there's, you see, bears, uh, all the time. Every time I've been in there hunting sheep, you'd see at least you know two, three bears. I mean it could be the same bear, but you see, in multiple days. Um, you're up in the mountains, you can see a long ways, so you're bound to see a bear. Uh, in the 17 years, you know, I've seen them, I've had them close, I've had them within 10, 15 feet walk through camp on the other ridge. You know, you start them walking through the bush. I've only actually sprayed one bear in that area. That was a year prior to. There's a big boar that was on top of one of the ridges and, uh, I was hunting mule deer and I come jogging over the ridge and he was sitting there feeding and I startled him and he stood up and I sprayed him. But, uh, I mean chances there, but in 17 years, you know, never really had a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess. I guess that is part of of that, that challenge the adventure as well, and if you're bought up with it, it's just something you like.
Speaker 2:you said you go prepared for and you had the spray and it's, uh, it just yeah, it's just the way things are right like if you live in australia, you're running snakes all the time, so yeah and and how does it?
Speaker 1:how did the bear react when it got sprayed the year before? Uh?
Speaker 2:it, uh, stopped him dead and he started swiping his face. And then I panicked and I mean, you stand there and you got you know 300, 400 pound animal in front of you growling and making funny noises. He, he just run. I ran and climbed up into the rocks and got above him. So, um, he just end up a half hour later. So he just ran off just wiping his face and and that was that was it made me think a little bit. But that one there I, yeah I, we knew he was up there and I just I got excited and saw a deer.
Speaker 1:So so back back on that day you saw the, the cub, run past you and you knew what was coming. What sort of size was the cub?
Speaker 2:You know, the cub, probably the size of a, oh about the size of a small bin, like a closed basket, carry clothes in, so maybe 50 pounds, size of a medium-sized dog. You know, it ran past and they're so fluffy they look bigger but they're kind of cute. But it was just that moment where, like if you've ever been in a car wreck and you're flying through the air and you know you're going to hit the ground, you know it's coming, it's just when is it coming? And everything's so slow motion, and that's the same situation I was in, just standing like where's mama? Like I know she's got to be here, and you know, and stupid me that morning, uh, I was so excited to go cheap hunting.
Speaker 2:I remember my bear spray was sitting in the backseat of my truck and, uh, and I already had my bino harness on and everything, and I, in order to get my bear spray on, I have to take off my bino harness, put it on and all that, and I was just like I'm going to just get out there. And I was just like I'm going to just get out there and I remember just grabbing it through the backpack, thinking to myself, you know, there's no chance of me seeing a bear on the way in like this. There wasn't one there three days ago and you know what's the chances of having another close encounter with one? I mean, last year was just a freak incident and I was reaching in my backpack to grab my bear spray and when I was doing that I heard a branch break over my right shoulder and when I turned and looked, um, there was there.
Speaker 2:There was mama. I mean, she was on a full charge in. Uh, I remember her right paw was stretched out. I could see her claws, um, her mouth was slightly open and, uh, I see her teeth and then the whites of her eyes. And I could see her teeth and then the whites of her eyes. That was a little surprising, like you know, she was right there beside me. I only had, you know, a quick time to react, like half a second, and all I could think of to do was just grab my bicycle and drop it in front of her and step aside and let her run past me.
Speaker 1:We've got a visitor, I see this carino, it's easter holiday here same here wrestling kids yeah, I'm in the garage.
Speaker 2:My kids are all running around oh, brilliant.
Speaker 1:It's not the first time they've crept in. To be honest, I think it's quite cool when they when they do, but there's, there's moments, and there's moments isn't there.
Speaker 2:Sorry, mate all good, all good. Um, you know, when she was right there and and, like I said, all I can, all I can think about doing, was just just picking my bicycle drop in front of her, stepping aside, and she ran right into my bicycle frame and her head went through the frame of the bike. She stopped and she turned and snapped her head and looked right at me. I had the bicycle around her neck like a necklace there.
Speaker 1:First thing I did was what distance was this happening at, jeremy? Three feet maybe.
Speaker 2:Just right there, close enough that you can smell her anyways I was just gonna ask the smell, yeah there I don't know if you've ever been around horses or you're walking to a place where there's horses, you get that real musty smell. Um, that's like a bear, but a little more of a pungent, rotten smell, almost. Um, you can definitely tell it's a bear. It's one of those things you will not forget was.
Speaker 1:Was there any chance? I mean, I know you mentioned you, you you forgot the to put the spray in is in the back of your backpack on too excited it was. Was there any chance of being distracted by the fact that you'd already seen these sheep early? Or are they quite well camouflaged or hard to spot anyway?
Speaker 2:I walked myself into a bad situation. I was too excited about my sheep and I walked into an area where I mean, all along the trail, just after the game wardens talking with them and the investigation, the whole trail where I walked up was all grizzly bear tracks. There was piles of uh dung all the way up and down there. There was a huge berry patch that they were in and you could tell they'd been in there for a very long time. And I would like I said I was too focused on my end goal. I was too focused on my sheep instead of being in the moment and focusing on where I was. Um, I mean, that's one of my biggest mistakes. Um, it's focusing on that end goal versus focusing on what I'm doing in the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so yeah, there she. There she was with wearing your bike frame as a necklace.
Speaker 2:And the first thing I did was grab my backpack and it's uh, it's a badlands backpack and it's got, uh, metal rails on the side for strapping things too, and I grabbed them and I smashed her in the face as hard as I could with, uh, with the backpack. Um, she managed to get a hold of it and I had the the part that goes against my back was facing her and she grabbed it and bit into it and was twisting it and I was managing to wrestle it away from her and then she shook the bike off and she come in real fast and managed to grab my right hand and squeeze it against the frame of the backpack. And I remember looking at my hand and you could see her snout and her two canine teeth just sink into my hand and I could feel, um, as she was shaking, I could feel it rub against the bones and you could feel it grind on the side of the pack. You can hear it and I, you know I didn't uh, it felt quite painful. Um, I managed to get my hand away and then I just like, screw this, Like I was getting really mad, and started just bashing her as hard as I could with the pack, trying to get a hitter, with the metal part smashing her more in the face. I mean that that lasted for probably 10 seconds, Like it feels like it was an hour, but really it was so quick.
Speaker 2:Um, then she backed away and then, uh, she was backing away. I started backing up and keep my eyes on her and I was trying to open up my backpack. I was looking down and trying to pull my bear spray out or pull my gun off something, and I just remember I started unzipping my pack, I you know, and I took my eyes off her and then, when I looked up again, she had spun around and she was now facing me again and then she started to come charging in. Um, and I mean, she was 30 feet away. It was like three steps for her. Uh, she come, she turned around and I could just see her, her like coil up, and then, uh, take that first step. And I was like, oh shit, She'd come running and I panicked. I mean, you got something come running at you.
Speaker 2:I threw my backpack at her, hoping that she would, you know, go after my lunch and I ran up the mountainside and my goal was just to run up the mountainside. It was quite steep and there's a lot of spruce trees. There's small spruce trees, but I was hoping I could run up the steep side of the hill and jump into a tree and get you know a few feet off the ground before you know, instead of trying to climb from the bottom up. And I ran about 60 or so meters and I jumped into a tree and I was about two and a half three meters up off the ground at my center of chest. My left leg was up pretty high and my right leg was dangling low. I'm trying to bring it up, to get it on a branch or something to stand, pull myself up or push myself up. And I was just looking down.
Speaker 2:I can hear her coming through the bush. She's just huffing and it's just like a freight train coming through you and just huffing and, uh, it's just like a freight train coming through. You know everything, just the branches snapping, you know Um. So I'm trying to pull myself up and trying to get my leg on the on a branch and, um, I looked down, she was at the base of the tree. Uh, she stood up on her hind legs and wrapped both her front paws around my right leg and just wrapped right around it, around about my knee and up lower thigh, and she just pulled it down and towards her mouth and she lunged up in her mouth, bit me, uh, on the right leg and behind the knee, so her canine teeth were on either side of my kneecap, in the front, and she bit and she crushed down and I remember looking down at her and she's biting my leg, going this is going to hurt. Um, my surprise, I didn't feel anything. She sunk her teeth right in. I could just feel the pressure and to feel things crack and snap. I was holding on for dear life and she just plucked me out of that tree like nothing, All my strength, you know, holding on and she just gone just out of the tree.
Speaker 2:I hit the ground quite hard and you know I was in a spruce tree, so the spruce tree's got the big brows at the bottom. And you know I was in the spruce tree, so the spruce tree's got the big brows at the bottom. I just scrambled far underneath the tree, wrapped my arms and legs around the base of the tree and I held on and I was hoping those spruce brows would protect me from her. Maybe she'd, you know, not be able to get at me. She's reaching with her paws and trying to pull out and the spruce brows were helping.
Speaker 2:And then she almost seemed like she got frustrated. She took a couple swipes and then she reached in with her mouth. I was laying on my right side wrapped around the tree. She bit me on the left side, just in the kind of left handles area below the rib cage, and sunk her teeth in and lifted me up off the ground and just shook me like a dog you know playing tug of war and threw me Um. At the time I weighed well.
Speaker 2:When I got to the hospital that night I weighed 254 pounds and I was in really good shape.
Speaker 2:And she picked me up like nothing, Like I mean I the strength of them.
Speaker 2:And when she shook her head she let go and I flew about a meter and a half or so I hit the ground and when I hit this time it knocked the wind out of me and I could hardly, hardly move, take a breath, Like it was happening so fast.
Speaker 2:I tried to curl up in a ball and I started to curl up in a ball and protect my head and neck and I was laying on my right side again and, and before I could take that first initial breath, uh, she was on top of me just instant, just bang, there she was, and the first thing she did was, uh, bite me on the left side of the face. Um, as I was curling up in a ball, she came, and then she grabbed me right. Like her, uh, top two canine teeth sunk in on either side of the left eye. Her two canine teeth just straddled my eye really, and when she bit down, she moved the whole left side of my face all the way from the lower part of my eye socket all the way down to the top edge of my jaw, and she just removed the whole side of my face in one quick bite and she just removed the whole side of my face in one quick bite.
Speaker 1:um, when you um retell this at the time, what did? Yeah, what I'm trying to get is is, I guess, was it this fight or flight? Was any of this conscious, or was it just pure survival instinct and just a blur of pain, adrenaline and panic?
Speaker 2:A little bit of panic, I guess lots of adrenaline. It happens so fast. From when she pulled me out of the tree to this first bite, that was probably eight seconds, ten seconds, it was so fast. There's nothing you can really do is just react.
Speaker 1:Um you know, no pre-planning ahead, no obviously, but and and from from, from the, the moment that you saw her and and put your bike frame on as a, as a necklace, until the end of the attack. How long did that last?
Speaker 2:roughly uh, well, the, with all three rounds. Uh, it was about 12 minutes and there's only. I only fought her physically, like hand to hand, for about 90 seconds maybe. I'm like. So you know, she took that bite of my face and you know like things are going pretty slow, like that bite probably lasts like half a second, but for me it was like 10 minutes. You know, you just see your face coming in and grab you and when she pulled her head back I was like man, that hurt, like like I felt that you could just feel everything crack and you could just feel almost it's like a fire burning, when, when her mouth pulled away, you can just feel like the air hit it and just that burning sensation. And and uh, you can, just you can hear everything just crunch inside of your face.
Speaker 2:Um, and, and I, and when she pulled her head back, I was thinking like this sucks playing dead and getting chewed on, like this sucks. And I knew, and I knew that this was going to be the end and you know you don't usually survive a bear like this. Um, and this weird, I thought in my head uh, well, she, she, when she pulled her head back and I wanted to stop her from biting me in the face. So I started to punch her in the nose, poke her in the eye, grab her ear, um, just all kinds of things, just to stop her from biting me in the face, cause I mean that really hurt. And when she came down to bite me a second time in the face, um, we just had this moment, like it was just this stupid thought about uh, maybe if I grab her tongue she won't be able to bite me, kind of like a dog, if you hold her tongue they can't bite you, right? I mean, they kind of can, but not. And so, as her mouth was coming down, it just was in like a perfect spot and I punched my left hand into her mouth and I slid my, slid my middle finger and index finger down her throat or down her tongue into her throat, and wrapped my hand, rest my hand around her tongue and I held on and I just remember, you know, feeling the start of the tongue was all kind of soft. And then you could feel like the ridge of the tongue and some scars and it turned into soft leather and some almost like scars and it turned into soft leather and then you could feel all the hairs and then back of her throat and I had my two fingers, you know, down her throat and when I did that she just she made almost like a choking sound and she was shaking her head a little bit and I was just holding on.
Speaker 2:Then her back paws were digging into my, uh right side, in into the uh, I guess, abs and that, and that was quite painful, I mean, and she was probably only about a 300 pound bear, but just all that pressure, and so I was trying to push her hind legs off of me and I couldn't move her. You know, she was solid and my hand slipped and I hit the belly and I and I could tell it was the belly, you know, less hair and more skin and and I reached up in between, uh, the legs and at the time I grabbed a big chunk of loose skin or I mean I thought it was balls, and I twisted and pulled and when I did, uh, the bears, she squealed like a pig, just like a deep, deep pig, squeal, um, something. Give you nightmares. And she's just squealing, um, and kind of gagging at the same time. And I held on I don't know, it wasn't very long, uh, a few seconds maybe, and I let go. And she ran back the way. She came, just squealing like a pig and defecating across the mountainside Like just you can just smell it and hear it. And she's running and squealing and definitely tell that I put the hurt on her. I scared her enough, um so.
Speaker 2:So then, uh, I got up right away and just dusted myself off and kind of in shock I guess not realizing my injuries at that moment and stood up, just dusted myself off, walked over to my packing gear. I'm like, well, that sucks. I pulled my cell phone out and figured I'd take a selfie just to see what I look like. And I took a picture of myself and in this photo you can see I'm missing the whole left side of my face and large portions of my scalp. And at the time when I was looking at it, I was thinking, well, that's not too bad. I mean, at least I can go over there and go get the sheep, or I can go look for the stupid bear there and go get the sheep, or I can go look for this stupid bear. And uh, I was. I was disappointed in myself, um, very disappointed in myself.
Speaker 2:Well, now I have to go home and deal with this and I spent that whole summer, actually from April till August now end of August, um, looking for my sheep and I finally found a ram. And you know, to get a, to get a legal ram in Alberta it's like two to 4% success rate and there's usually 200, 300 hunters hunting that same sheep, like that's what you know. Statistics come out as and and I followed that ram and I knew every three days where he was. I was always on top of him. I was very vigilant top of him. I was very digilent, making sure like this is he's definitely legal. I got lots of pictures of him, talked a lot of friends yeah, that ram's legal, go get him. And now something stupid, like if I had my bear spray on me, I could have.
Speaker 1:Just when she first came charging, I could have just turned and sprayed her and you know, maybe I'd look a little bit prettier and wouldn't have such a face for a podcast, but I mean it strikes me that, um, it's incredible the way that you talk about that, that that incident and, yeah, that almost the disassociation I guess you might come on to something in a minute, but the the stupid idea that you had about putting your hand in her mouth, but probably saved your life, uh yeah, it probably saved me a lot more damages, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, it's just one of those things you just think a little like me and my buddy hunted sheep in there forever together, lots, and we always thought like, yeah, if it's chewing on you, you know, grab his tongue or do something. We always talked about and joked about it and you know, I was just thinking myself at the time, I, I'm the only one that would know that it actually worked or not.
Speaker 1:So after you took that photo, what happened?
Speaker 2:So I took the photo. I started opening my pack and looking I had a small first aid kit and I was thinking, okay, well, I've got something in here to bandage myself up. And I had all my gear spread out and I was going through it all and I was just like, holy crap, this ain't gonna work. Um, I didn't really realize how bad it was like I didn't think it was that bad at first. And um, and I was just sitting there and um got my gun off my pack and I had it leaning against my left shoulder and I had the clip in my right hand and I was putting in rounds, thinking like this sucks, like now what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2:And the bear, from when the bear we let, when we, when she ran away, till now it was probably, you know, seven, eight, 10 minutes. You know everything's quiet and there's nothing around, right, you know I'm safe. And so I'm sitting there loading up the clip and I was putting rounds in the clip, I heard my hands just dropped to the side, just dropped, like I lost all control. Everything went numb and then I could hear the sound of like ice breaking. The bear had come back and she had grabbed me by the back of the head, back of the skull, and uh, I could feel her teeth just grinding on the back of my head and you could just hear, like nails on a chalkboard kind of thing, and uh, you can just feel the, the crunching and the and the pressure. Um, so she had me by the back of the head and I remember seeing her paws on either side of me digging to the ground and she was grunting and pulling me back, like when a dog, when you play tug of war, how it, and she she's pulling me back into the back up the hill and, um, it felt like you know, being dragged for a while or quite a distance, but probably like 15 feet, maybe egg for a while, or quite a distance, but probably like 15 feet maybe.
Speaker 2:And uh, when we came to a stop I was sitting in my butt, kind of hunched over, leaning against her. She reached over my right shoulder with her paw, caught me in the bottom left side corner of the face, uh, kind of in between my jaw and my ear, and her paw stretched literally across the side, across my whole face and and her paw stretched literally across my whole face and her claws dug in and she peeled my whole face from the bottom left corner, between my ear and jaw, all the way across, removing my nose, my right eye, busting the eye socket and peeling all the way to the right side of my head, removing my ear and the large portion of my scalp. The rest of it, uh, that was just one swoop with her paw and then she started chewing on the left side of my head and the top corner of my head. Uh, just tuned like sideways with her side of her teeth, just gnawing on it like a dog chewing on a bone. And then she started pulling away my back of my neck and collarbone on the left side, and just ripping and tearing and nothing I could do. Like you, like you couldn't even move it. Everything's happened so fast. She must, uh, repositioned or moved.
Speaker 2:I fell back and my back was laying on the ground and, uh, I couldn't see at all at this point, like everything was really blurry and I didn't really know what extent my injuries were. But I could tell something was standing above me, like straddling me. Everything was really blurry, but I could feel the like, the hair on my face, or just sense it, and I reached up and grabbed a big ball of loose skin again, and with both hands and I, when I grabbed it, I made a fist and I twisted, and as I made the fist and I held on and then I wrapped my legs around her head and neck, um, just kind of locked them in and whatever I had I was trying to pull off. Um, I was only hanging on for dear life and whatever I had you could tell it was causing her immense pain. She was squealing and she started to buckle like a bronco and then she started to roll around and I was just holding on and then I let go and she ran down the mountainside and just squeal and just it was just like a horrible pig sound almost. And she ran down the mountainside and, um, as she left, I, I couldn't see. Um, my left eye was hanging out of the socket, hanging down. I was feeling my face. I couldn't. I had no right eye, like I couldn't feel it. I didn't know where it was. Um, my jaw on the left side was pulled and hanging down, all my teeth and everything were exposed and and, uh, I remember just had these pieces of my face just dangling down and I couldn't stand at all.
Speaker 2:I ended up just army crawling down the hill. I kind of relatively knew where it was. I knew if I crawled down the hill I'd get to my packing gear. I crawled down the hill and found my gear right away. I found my gun right away, feeling around. I grabbed it and I grabbed a couple of shells in my pocket and I tried to put them in the in the chamber, but where the I couldn't see well enough and my fingers were, you know, going different ways and I was trying to put a shell in the in the chamber and it just kept falling out where the clip was.
Speaker 2:And so I started to really panic and I started feeling around on the mountain side and the first thing I found was like a piece of flesh. You could tell, you could feel the bristle parts, you can feel the smoothness of it on the one side and it ended up being a chunk of my mustache and goatee and lips. And then, feeling around, I found another large chunk of my scalp and, uh, just like a really hard piece of my ear and side of my head, and and then uh, and then, uh, I was feeling around, you know, kept feeling around and I finally I found the clip and I slammed it in the gun and I already knew it had a couple rounds in it. So the first dark thing near me, I just shot three bullets into it. Just it didn't you know, it mattered, it's just the sound hopefully scared it off and then just kind of trying to figure out, you know, what do I do? Right, like you just get that, I don't know, everything just starts racing and you're like man, like what do I? I don't know, I think it just starts racing and you're, and you're like man, what? Like, what do I do? You know, I'm not going to make it.
Speaker 2:And and I was leaning against this old rotten log on the ground and I was just thinking, like what do you do? Um, and then I knew I was going to die, like I knew that just came to reality, like how am I going to survive this? You know, I'm bleeding from my face, my side, my leg, my hands. There's blood all over the place. And like you don't, you don't make it out. I'm, I'm over 12 kilometers from the truck at this point in time. And uh, it's 12 kilometers, two ridges and cross a creek about 11 times. Like I mean, nobody makes that. And I just I knew.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden, things just got really, really calm for me. Like it just I'm going to die, okay, I accepted it. And it just everything just went slow. And then I'm sitting there thinking like, like, how does this? Like how, what, how, how do you die? Like? Do you just like pass out, do you? Uh, I don't, that part kind of scared me and I had a couple of choices to make.
Speaker 2:You know, do I try to endear the endearable?
Speaker 2:Um, do I just lay there and let it happen, or do I just end things my way? I just end things my way. And uh, you know it was a tough decision. So I, I, uh, I loaded up the gun again and uh, figured, you know, I'm just going to end it myself because I'm going to die. And it just didn't go along, or what was going between now and then. And, um, I load up the gun and I put my chin on the, on the barrel, and I pulled the trigger. Um, the gun just clicked and I was like, well, you know, I was confused at first and I had the barrel, I pulled it to the side and I reached down with my left hand to cycle the bolt again. And when I got ahold of the bolt it was quite stiff and like it was almost like it was jammed. And when I, as soon as I reefed on it and pulled it, they got me fired and you know barrels on the side of my face and a bullet and that scared me yeah.
Speaker 1:How does it feel talking about this again, Jeremy?
Speaker 2:It's difficult. I mean, at first I put it in the book and didn't want to tell anybody or admit that I tried to do that. You know I'm thinking that. You know you're a tough guy, so I don't want anybody to think less of me for, uh, for wanting to commit suicide, um, but uh, now, as I talk about it more and more, I expand a little bit more and, uh, it's, it's okay. I mean, we all have dark times and we all have things that we regret doing, but it's what we do with it afterwards, or how do we get through. It is the biggest part, and so I think talking about it, it uh helps other people that may have, may have be in a, in a situation where they think that's, that's it. Um, and I think maybe, you know, talking about it will help. Some of those people think that there is things you can do, you can get through it and there is help out there talk to to us briefly about how you got out, and then we'll touch on a few of the lessons.
Speaker 2:So after that I wrapped my face and head up with a. I put a sweatshirt on upside down with the neck over part of my forehead, and I folded up a piece of my face and folded up what I could inside the body of the shirt, folded shirt down and tied the sleeves underneath my chin to hold my chin up and then tied two knots in the back to help hold my head straight so was there a conscious decision, jeremy?
Speaker 1:sorry to cut you off there after after trying to to take your life. Was there a conscious decision then?
Speaker 2:right, I'm gonna try and make it out or when the gun went off and I was thinking to myself you know, like what was I doing? I I uh owed it to my family to at least try to make it somewhere where they're going to find the body. I mean, where I was there wasn't a lot of people that go back there. I mean, all these are hunted back and they're maybe seeing one or two people. So I made a constant decision to at least try to make it to the other side of the drainage. More people go there and have a higher chance of somebody finding the body. And so I wrapped my face up and grabbed my gun and tried to stand up. And I mean the first 10 feet. I fell probably a hundred times. Every time I put weight on my right leg it would just collapse fell probably a hundred times, um, every time I put weight on my right leg it would just collapse. So then I uh finally was able to stand and shuffle my legs.
Speaker 2:Um, but the first, you know, 10, 15 feet of the trail went down, uh edge of the drainage and I made it 15 feet or so and I lost my balance. I fell into the drainage, down into the drainage and down the drainage all the way to the bottom, to a creek, let's say, 200, 300 feet Laying through all the boulders. It was an immense pain. I was using my gun as a like a cane and when I hit the bottom of the drainage, uh, my gun sling was actually wrapped around my arm and I was laying on my face and my right arm was stretched out, laying on the rocks and I was laying there in just immense pain, like I couldn't, I couldn't move, I couldn't, I couldn't really do anything.
Speaker 2:Um, and just, you know, listening to this creek right in front of me there, and and just the pain I couldn't even roll over. Um, I struggled for my phone to, to get it out, to, uh, just to play some music, cause I knew this was, this was as far as I was going to make it and, uh, I struggled to get my phone out and just to just to play music, just to help help me, I guess, fall asleep. And, um, the song that came on that played was the song I played for my daughter the night before and, uh, it was on repeat and then it was uh song was baby shark.
Speaker 1:Of all the songs.
Speaker 2:Of all the songs, all the songs you know um and it was on repeat cause, you know, kids are they? Uh, they like their songs and they like to replay the same one over and over and over again. And so, yeah, I would play it on repeat. And, uh, you know, just listening to that song just gave me the strength just to roll over and just to reach for that first rock. That was literally like a foot in front of me and I pulled myself up to it. And then I was like, okay, I can make it to the next one. And I just kept pulling myself up to the next rock and just setting little mini goals for myself, just little mini steps, you know, only for what I can reach and obtain at that time. And as I got to, as I reached each one of those, it just gave me, as I accomplished those goals, it just gave me more power to go further. And, you know, maybe I can make it to five feet to that next rock, to that bush, and the whole way out, the 12.8 kilometer hike out, it was just reaching for that next rock, or that bush, that tree, Um, and that was all all. All I knew I was going to die along the way, I just didn't know where. But I was only focused on what I contained at that moment. And, and the driving force was, you know, but I was only focused on what I contained at that moment and the driving force was, you know, seeing my wife and daughter again. I knew I wasn't going to see them again, but just the thought of them and that song just helped give me a little extra push that, hey, I can make it to that next tree. And then, when I got there, you know, okay, can I make it to that next one? I got enough energy just to make it to there. Um, and then when I got to my truck, I was, it was great.
Speaker 2:I got to my truck, uh, hopped in and I started it up and I took off the rear view mirror and I moved the side mirror out of the way, cause I didn't want to know what I looked like. And I remember when I started the truck up, I looked out the front windshield and I couldn't tell where the road was and where the truck had ended. I rolled down the driver's side window and looked down. I couldn't tell where the ground was. All I could see was just dark green on either side of the of a light spot and I figured, heck, you know, I'll just drive in the light spot and hopefully I'd run into somebody on the road.
Speaker 2:It's a gravel road back in the middle of nowhere where it probably sees maybe 10 vehicles a week at max. I managed to drive 22 kilometers down that road to a place called Panther River and from there I walked in and met some people there that got me a helicopter, a private helicopter. I flew out to a small town of Sundry about half hour away, and then from Sundry Hospital to Calgary is about an hour and a half drive. So they threw me in the ambulance and drove me to Calgary and then I arrived at the hospital here in my hometown in Calgary. And yeah, the rest is history from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mate, yeah, it's incredible to listen to. Yeah, very, very raw, intense. Yeah. So many things I want to touch on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many things I want to touch on. But what for you did like? At first I thought you know who went why, why would I write a book or who wants to read about me? Um, I got mauled by a bear and I crawled out like big deal, and then it was started like no, it's like the little stuff that you did, like how you set the little small goals for yourself and and uh, and how you only were focused on what you can achieve in that moment and not focusing on the end goal, because if I was focusing on making it to my truck, I would have never made it.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's a huge thing to look at. Right, you need to break it down, and so that's one of the lessons Family comes first. No matter what, you need to put your family first. And there you're, supporting your heroes. They're your cheerleaders. They're going to be there for you, no matter what the situation. They're going to be there to help you get through it.
Speaker 2:And when you hit those dark times, you got to remember those little things like that that help trigger a driving force, a response within you, like Baby Shark. It reminded me of my daughter and I really wanted to see her again. I really wanted to just make it so that they'd have closure right away, but it was that song that just gave me that drive just to try, just to push through. I mean, when you hit rock bottom, um, it sucks, but when you think about it you're at rock bottom. Everything, any step you make from there is going in a better direction, and it's just realizing that when you hit rock bottom, that's the bottom. The only way to go up is up from there.
Speaker 2:And and then, um, you know, when it hit the hospital, it was the nightmares and flashbacks, and, and, um, you know, when it hit the hospital, it was the nightmares and flashbacks. And and, uh, you know I was never going to be able to deal with that on my own. I mean, I needed help. And when, and I reached out for help, um, you know, asking for psychiatric help is, uh, it's not a weakness, it's a strength, and it's, and when you ask for help, don't, and it's, and when you ask for help, don't, do your homework, accept it, trust it. Um, you know, some of the other lessons too that that kind of came about after was working in a team. I mean there was, I don't know, 40, 50 nurses, a dozen or more doctors that worked on me, uh, but they had to work collaboratively together in a team to put basically Humpty Dumpty back together again and you know, just working in a team and being able to help each other out and communicate um, how do you view this?
Speaker 1:what do we? What do you? Even refer it to the tack, but what do you refer it to as as an event in my life? Okay, how do you, how, how do you? How do you view this event in your life now?
Speaker 2:this is something that happened and I survived it. I mean, I'm a survivor, I'm not a. I don't call myself a victim or ever think that I'm a survivor and I survived this and just move on with it. And I know what drives me to talk about it more is how do I cope with it and how do I get to the next level and keep moving on. And for me, you know I had a lot of help, I asked for help, I had a lot of psychiatric help, I had a lot of friends, a lot of support and some of the other little things that I did that got me through and just being able to share those. Well, I'm hoping to help other people to get to a better place in their life, to be able to overcome adversity.
Speaker 1:In day-to-day life. What are some of the challenges that you face now?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't necessarily call them challenges, just things that may take me a little bit longer. Yeah, uh, like I'd never be able to run a four minute mile again Cause I'm my legs are you know, the ligaments of my right leg being severed and a bunch of the pins and stuff I have. But I mean I could ride a bike in a four minute mile. So I can still accomplish a four minute mile, just in different means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great reframe that, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there, there. It's just a different struggle, but there's ways to overcome it.
Speaker 1:I mean my hand. When I close my left hand, sometimes my pinky sticks out, you know. And so when I'm drinking a cup of tea, it's like, yeah, look at me, you know, I thought you were taking the mick out of me drinking my cup of tea when I first came on.
Speaker 2:But it's like you know, my pinky sticks out, so you got to watch out, so sometimes you got to push it in. You know, when I turn the screwdriver it hits things. I mean it. I mean, does it suck? Yeah, but I can get through it, like it's not a big deal, like it. I mean, you know I'm, I'm missing. You know half the hair on my head, well, maybe a third, but you know it's. I mean other than the, the glare we're getting off it right now. I mean it's. It was pretty shiny. Um, I get half price haircuts.
Speaker 1:So I mean it's awesome and some of the coping mechanisms that you use or strategies you use to help you see self keep grounded, and an advice you give other people in terms of what they can do when they hit hit rock bottom you know, uh, I use humor to uh get over some stressful times and and I like puns.
Speaker 2:So I what I tell other people is is uh is get like. I have a a little key chain of one of my quotes from high school on it and this is I cannot change the direction of wind, but I can always reach my desk, but I can always set my sail. So I reach my destination and I carry that with me and when I get those hard times I look at it, you know, and I'm thinking, yeah, I can, I can get through this. Like, what's another way around it, what's another avenue? How do you? You?
Speaker 2:I mean, I can't run a four minute mile, but how else can I do a four minute mile? And it's just looking at a different path and on the backside of it has a quote from a Duke Nukem video game when I played when I was a kid, and it says I'm here to kick some ass and chew some bubble gum, but I'm all out of bubble gum. And that just you know that makes me chuckle and think, yeah, I got this like I'm all out of bubble gum when I need to go get it, and it's just letting people know that you that, yeah, you're at rock bottom it hurts, it sucks, but the next step you take forward is in an upwards direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, listening to you and and doing the work that I do, what, what, what stands out at me again is the word that keeps coming up. For me, personally, it's because you've accepted it is what it is rather than, like you said, make it mean something and it's a moment in your life.
Speaker 2:It's not your whole life.
Speaker 1:Exactly that you can now then, because you've accepted it, although it's painful emotionally. I guess that also turns down the volume, the volume of the, the resistance to that which allows you to look at things with a sense of humor when the time's right, when you're in the mood, yeah and um it's, and also it's accepting that you're a survivor.
Speaker 2:You're like you're not a victim. I mean you may start from ptsd I did for quite a while, but I was never a victim. I'm a survivor. You're like you're not a victim. I mean you may start from PTSD I did for quite a while, but I was never a victim. I'm a survivor. As soon as you call yourself and think of yourself as a survivor, you can move on. You survived that traumatic incident. I mean, to me a victim is you're living through it, right, this second, like the bear's chewing on me.
Speaker 2:I mean you're kind of a victim, but then, once it's over, you survived it, you're done and you don't need to think about did you do everything? Did you? If you did it this way, would it be? Would you have a better outcome? Sure, I mean, if I had my bear spray on me, sprayed the bear, yeah, it would have been better looking. I would have gone through what I had. But I did everything right because I'm sitting here today talking to you and I don't need to go back and dwell on what could have been or what should have been. I'm here. I did everything right. Yeah, things don't quite work out work well, but I don't need to focus on that. I survived it.
Speaker 1:Was writing the book therapeutic for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was tough. Most of the parts of the book I wrote were over a few years. Uh, every time I have a nightmare flashback, I would write down what it was, and I had my whole journal kept through the whole entire time, until at the hospital and the years after. Um, so just trying to put all that together was tough. Uh, the book. I haven't read the book cover to cover myself. There's one section of the book that I haven't read. I'll miss my wife's journal entries and I don't. Um, I'll get there at some point, but not today. Um, that's a little tough to go through. Um, but yeah, I'll get there.
Speaker 1:I'll get there in time where can people find out a bit more about you, buddy, or get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:So you can get in touch with me through grizzlydudeca. That's my website. On there you can order a signed copy of Mald. But if you don't like a signed copy of Mald, you can order it off of Amazon, so, yeah, or your local book retailer, I'm not sure. I guess Amazon is probably the best place for overseas. Here in Canada it's pretty available at a lot of bookstores. But, yeah, sign copies at grizzlydudeca. I'll ship them out personally, sign them and I put it out in each and every book.
Speaker 2:And if the book for speeches you can reach out to through grizzledudeca, there's a section on there for requesting for an event and we'll get back to you really quick. And I've done talks worldwide. So it's very exercise and I enjoy traveling and I enjoy talking to other individuals, companies, to help get the message out there and help show them that you know when you work as a team, when you set small goals, you can achieve incredible things. And you know reaching out for help when it feels impossible can be the catalyst of transformation and it's okay to ask for help. I mean we all need it at some point in time. Okay to ask for help. I mean we all need it at some point in time you could be the toughest sob out there that goes and fights bears, but that doesn't mean you're fit or well enough to look after somebody else. You need to be mentally fit first before you can take responsibility to help somebody else.
Speaker 1:So yeah, brilliant, great stuff, mate. Is there any before we wrap up? Is there anything like you you'd like to mention or anything that I've missed out that you feel is important about your story, your message, your journey um?
Speaker 2:yeah, now that I've been sharing my, my story, doing lots of uh inspirational speaking engagements, I've met a lot of people that have suffered with trauma and they've come and tell me a story and say listening to me has helped them get to the next point or has has helped them reach out to get help, uh for PTSD or any different types of trauma. And uh, that has striked me to start my own charity um for PTSD. It's called the Grizzly Dude Fund and it's for uh evidence-based research into uh best treatment methods for the individual. And then, uh, there's a social worker side to it where it's uh, how do you navigate the system and how do you get the courage to do another treatment if one doesn't work? Uh cause, a lot of individuals who have suffered from PTSD and recovered know that it takes a lot of hard work and more than one treatment to help get the puzzle pieces back together. And it's a long process. And with the research, that I want to do is to make sure we get that right the first time, to help everybody get there, instead of putting themselves out there second, third, fourth time with therapists. I want to be able to get it right the first time and to give people the courage to step up to say, hey, I need some help, what do I do? How do I get it? And my goal is to raise $5 million.
Speaker 2:Me, as a person, I struggle with asking for donations. I set this charity up through the University of Calgary a little over a year ago and I'm not the person to just go out and ask for donations. So I struggle with it and only raise about $1,700 in a year. I just want to get the word out there. That's what my goal is and the charity, the money that was raised, it's fine.
Speaker 2:I want to raise $5 million and that money gets vested in all the proceeds off that runs the research part, Um, so I only have to ask for money once and never again in the charity. You'll be there forever, um, and I want to impact uh, you know lives all around the world, not just a small group. So this is what I thought would be the best way. If you want to donate to the cause, there'll be a link onto this podcast and it's called the Grizzly Dude Fund and there's also a link to it on my webpage at grizzlydudeca. There's a direct link to take you right to there and you'll be able to check out all the information and then also what's going on on, uh, my tours, uh, the latest updates and instagram.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm bad with social media, uh, but I tried to do a post a week, so well, I'll put all those links and and notes in there so people can find you and and be able to connect. But yeah, for what it's worth, mate, thanks so much for your for you the courage to to tell your story and and for pulling yourself from one rock to the to the next. There's some really powerful, interesting things in there and it's it's very inspirational to to see somebody that can process that and then have the like I said, the courage to to talk about it. So thank you very much yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me on this. Is you know, this is uh healing for me and it helps me just keep going in and recovering and I appreciate. Thank you for your time.