Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast.
Speaker 2: You can't predict anything.
Speaker 1: The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting
Speaker 1: for el, First Light has performance apparel to support every
Speaker 1: hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light
Speaker 1: dot com. F I R S T L I t
Speaker 1: E dot com. Join Today by Shane Burke, fresh off
Speaker 1: a Grizzly bear mauling.
Speaker 3: Hey, Steve, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Here. I'm joking. I'm not joking.
Speaker 1: He Shane Burke is here fresh off of Grizzly bear
Speaker 1: malling don a Wyholming, joined h by his wife Chloe.
Speaker 4: Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: You're an EMT. Yes, where do you eat? Where do
Speaker 2: you e m T at? Chloe?
Speaker 4: Well, so I'm currently non affiliated, So let.
Speaker 1: Me your job hunting, dude. If your job hunting, I
Speaker 1: would pitch now hard.
Speaker 4: I know right now I'm currently working.
Speaker 5: As a licensed CMT working as a medical assistant.
Speaker 4: But I used to work in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: So you're not job hunting right now.
Speaker 4: Not currently.
Speaker 3: She's a nursing school right now.
Speaker 2: So, oh, so you're gonna move out of the E
Speaker 2: m T business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but you were helpful in this whole mauling situation.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll get into the details. But if I
Speaker 1: was gonna get mauled by a grizzy bear, I don't
Speaker 1: want to EMT nearby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5: It's kind of funny because I'm always joking with friends
Speaker 5: and stuff because people are.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, like, don't worry clothing EMT. I'm like, I
Speaker 4: really can't do that much.
Speaker 5: Don't make me work while I'm on vacation, Like I'm
Speaker 5: going to offer you an ice pack or you know.
Speaker 1: Shane was Shane was attacked by a baron May And
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna go through that whole harrowing story.
Speaker 1: But first I got up, Uh, tell these guys about
Speaker 1: something real quick.
Speaker 2: We have You know my kid's been selling pigeons.
Speaker 6: Do you know how your kid's been spelling pigeon?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: How do you know?
Speaker 2: He spells it with the J.
Speaker 6: I always do that text.
Speaker 2: I got that text.
Speaker 6: You know, it's it's like the Hawaiian language pigeon, Like.
Speaker 1: He spells around he's a bright kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one day he was for some reason or another.
Speaker 2: I think I talked about this.
Speaker 1: He started to spell America wrong, and I'm like, you
Speaker 1: better stop.
Speaker 2: And come back to me and spell your country properly.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's no k in there?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 6: Really? I don't know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he spells pigeon round. But uh so they got
Speaker 1: they get a nice little We did it. We did
Speaker 1: a night rate on what the hell days right now?
Speaker 1: We had a night rate on Saturday night, and.
Speaker 2: They wound up with three hundred and some dollars for
Speaker 2: the pigeons.
Speaker 1: Cool sold them all the next morning, and then they
Speaker 1: kept Now we have baby pets.
Speaker 6: So it has he come to the logical conclusion of like,
Speaker 6: why burn the gas trapping these things?
Speaker 1: No pets, dude, Like the neighbor girl kept one and
Speaker 1: my kids kept two. And now they got these pigeons
Speaker 1: that you got to hand feed them. We took yesterday,
Speaker 1: we took sunflower seed and a couple of cheerios and
Speaker 1: ran it through a coffee mill and mixed water in
Speaker 1: it to make a paste and all kind of other
Speaker 1: little things. And they've been there feeding them with hyrop.
Speaker 7: This is how Mike Tyson got started.
Speaker 1: Well, I know, and yeah, does your h my wife,
Speaker 1: my wife so unhappy?
Speaker 8: Does your h o A allow livestock operations?
Speaker 1: My wife god's reading about like she's reading something that
Speaker 1: said that pigeons have more have more affiliated passages.
Speaker 6: Than you should showed. Uh, your your your boy and
Speaker 6: his cruise. Uh oh gosh, their money making side, those
Speaker 6: articles on racing pigeons, the value that racing pigeons bring in,
Speaker 6: and then he can start training them to race, and
Speaker 6: if he comes up and a win with a winner,
Speaker 6: that'll be more money than his pigeon trapping business has
Speaker 6: ever brought in, hands down.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you could train them to be like Judas pigeons,
Speaker 9: just bring them to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I've raised I don't want to spend too
Speaker 1: much time on us. When I've raised pigeons in the past,
Speaker 1: here's a weird thing that would happen. You eventually lose
Speaker 1: them because they move in with regular pigeons. Like I
Speaker 1: had a cage for like a little roost basically a
Speaker 1: chicken coop for the pigeons, and you'd start to see
Speaker 1: regular pigeons hanging around, being like.
Speaker 2: What's gotten into you? Guys?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Like they'll hang around they
Speaker 1: and then pretty soon the your pigeons will move in
Speaker 1: with the regular pigeons. And the town where I was
Speaker 1: doing is didn't have a didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: regular pigeon hangouts. And I put red zip ties on
Speaker 1: mine and you could go down there and now then
Speaker 1: you'd see one of your old pigeons hanging out with
Speaker 1: the town pigeons. They they got to be to hang
Speaker 1: out with the town crew.
Speaker 2: They fall in with the downtown hang out late.
Speaker 10: That's pretty cool, though they go faral so quick, you know, yeah,
Speaker 10: you know you're there kind of dependent on you for
Speaker 10: a long time.
Speaker 1: Well they need to, because they were reading about how
Speaker 1: they can live seventeen years in the wild and seventeen years.
Speaker 2: And not in the wild in captivity. Yeah, and this
Speaker 2: is not Yeah, it's not seventeen years.
Speaker 7: It's not allowed.
Speaker 9: This it's not your retirement programor outdoor at your house.
Speaker 2: They're not allowed in the house.
Speaker 1: There's a space heat around.
Speaker 3: So I actually, uh banned peregrine falcons every year on
Speaker 3: this the first year I'll miss because of the bear attack.
Speaker 3: But uh, lots and lots of bands pigeon bands on talents.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, where were you banned?
Speaker 3: So I'm it's actually interesting because I was listening to
Speaker 3: an episode of organas brought up rock climbers. So we're
Speaker 3: rock climbers and you mentioned how the impact of on
Speaker 3: that we have on resting sites.
Speaker 2: That was.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I'll point out and Cal's defense he was
Speaker 1: making h I know.
Speaker 3: At first I was like he was making it like
Speaker 3: for instance, yes, yes and no, but also bodies.
Speaker 6: I have lots of buddies who are rock climbers, so
Speaker 6: I've gotten really good at making fun of rock climbers
Speaker 6: and the rock climbing life. Yeah. Yeah, so we need
Speaker 6: to go down that. Yeah you free loaders off their
Speaker 6: plates like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, I did see Red for a harpe.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, man, like but really he's he's
Speaker 3: knocking down on the rock climbers. And then then I
Speaker 3: saw that you flipped it and it was a hypothetical.
Speaker 3: We do have an impact, like as any outdoor sport
Speaker 3: has an impact in wildlife. So I actually very adult
Speaker 3: of you. Directly, I managed the falcon closures at our
Speaker 3: local crags. I helped maskil yep, so we closed down
Speaker 3: entire sections for two months.
Speaker 2: You like the bad guy, know somewhat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm the guy that will show up and be like, dude,
Speaker 3: get the hell away from the birds, like leave helone.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we banned them. I've been doing it for
Speaker 3: four or five years now, so no kid. Yep, that's sweet,
Speaker 3: that's great.
Speaker 1: We just released an episode with RFK Junior, who is
Speaker 1: involved in peregrine restoration.
Speaker 2: When they realized that, you know that he used.
Speaker 1: The term double clutching. Oh yeah, when they were trying
Speaker 1: to like repopulate peregrines. You know, you hear about if whatever,
Speaker 1: any kind of bird will lose its first clutch, like
Speaker 1: a turkey, it'll lose its clutch, if it's early in
Speaker 1: the spring, it'll just they'll get a second chance, possibly
Speaker 1: a third chance. So when they're trying to propagate peregrines,
Speaker 1: the bird had drop a clutch and they just kidnap
Speaker 1: the clutch, and then she'd drop another clutch and they
Speaker 1: kidnap that and then incubate all those and she would
Speaker 1: keep thinking she was losing her offspring, and she would
Speaker 1: double clutch or triple clutch, which so sounds like an
Speaker 1: automotive term.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, they're not the best nest builders. They
Speaker 3: don't build any nests. They just drop the eggs. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So sometimes they'll steal nests from like ravens and stuff,
Speaker 3: but they're not very good at that part.
Speaker 1: You know what a pigeon uses for a nest like
Speaker 1: a stick, It uses its own I've never read this.
Speaker 2: This is my observation. They build a nest of their
Speaker 2: own excrement.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and then they wonder why they get the reputation.
Speaker 1: How'd you want up with the military, man? I always
Speaker 1: wanted to know since you were growing up.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, my dad served, My uncle served nine to eleven. Happened.
Speaker 3: I was young, but I always wanted to do my part.
Speaker 3: I wanted to do more, you know, I was gonna
Speaker 3: go infantry and do X y Z. But my dad
Speaker 3: had a really real conversation with me and kind of
Speaker 3: talked to me. Out of infantry. The stars just kind
Speaker 3: of a line they wait, he did. When I got
Speaker 3: out of basic training in tech school, my unit was
Speaker 3: deployed Iraq. So I was like, you know, I'll go
Speaker 3: to Iraq seew it goes, and then I'll see where
Speaker 3: my military career can go. After that, got back from Iraq,
Speaker 3: had a little had a little trouble readjusting, wanted to
Speaker 3: go back really badly. Never happened. But you know, I
Speaker 3: met some of the best people in my life because
Speaker 3: of that deployment and I'll never regret that.
Speaker 2: So but I got lost it.
Speaker 1: You wanted to go infantry, correct, but still one up
Speaker 1: and I don't understand what were you doing?
Speaker 3: So I'm a mechanic, Yeah, and my overall specialty is
Speaker 3: what we call Hotel eight, which is recovery vehicles, so
Speaker 3: like if they get blown up, broken down, and basically
Speaker 3: a fancy tow truck driver that drives a really badass
Speaker 3: truck called the helmet record.
Speaker 2: And then you spent how much time there?
Speaker 3: I was in country for eleven months and.
Speaker 2: Then you didn't like coming home?
Speaker 3: No, coming home socked?
Speaker 2: What do you like? Tell me about that?
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, one of my mentors always told
Speaker 3: me the Army is the easiest job you'll ever quit.
Speaker 3: And it's just it's so simple there. You just got
Speaker 3: to survive. You're told when where to be and when
Speaker 3: to be there, what to where. It's just very regimented
Speaker 3: lifestyle coming home and just trying to navigate you know, pushromac, stress, drinking, friendships, relationships,
Speaker 3: it was. It was a lot. I came home with
Speaker 3: more money in my bank account than I ever had,
Speaker 3: and I should have bought a house at the right time.
Speaker 3: I didn't, but you know, instead I bought a sports
Speaker 3: car and was an idiot for a little while. Hold you,
Speaker 3: I am thirty five, now hold on you tube been
Speaker 3: married to going on two years in September, So.
Speaker 2: You didn't know, you didn't meet, you didn't know each
Speaker 2: other prior to service. I came home and bought a
Speaker 2: sports car. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bought a Mustang, as most idiots do when
Speaker 3: it come home from a tour and.
Speaker 2: So well discount codes when you're getting off the airplace.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I actually bought it when I was in country,
Speaker 3: still directly from the factory. So I put like sixteen
Speaker 3: grand down. My payment was like one hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 3: I was just like, yeah, it's too easy. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: it went a little crazy, went a little crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's a very uh standard. Like I'd say
Speaker 3: more than fifty percent of the people that come back there,
Speaker 3: they deal with these adjustment issues, and at the time,
Speaker 3: the VA was not very helpful. And I was trying
Speaker 3: to like get counseling and trying to get out of
Speaker 3: these bad habits that I had developed. Eventually I got
Speaker 3: in trouble and had to smarten up.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, and then you had a mega health scare.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get getting.
Speaker 2: Mold by yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean so we first
Speaker 2: he had to survive like a tumor.
Speaker 3: So here's the thing.
Speaker 4: It almost sounds made up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my life story really almost sounds made up. I've
Speaker 3: had a lot to a loss and health issues in
Speaker 3: the last four years.
Speaker 1: Can we pause this for mix? I have to mention something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you and I had I didn't realize this. We had
Speaker 1: like sort of interacted because you had sent in pictures.
Speaker 2: Just tell the yeah, like you know, brain tumor, you
Speaker 2: know all that. But let's just talk about this dead
Speaker 2: jar deer.
Speaker 3: So the deer was still alive when I found it.
Speaker 3: It was it was yeah, and that's why I was
Speaker 3: so controversial.
Speaker 2: And I didn't even remember it until like this morning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Shane came in.
Speaker 1: We're getting ready to court checause if you know you
Speaker 1: we interacted, like you posted a picture of mine and
Speaker 1: he showed me and it was this he'll tell you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I was scouting for a secondary spot my first
Speaker 3: year of hunting by myself. So I used to hunt
Speaker 3: with my father when I was a kid. Through some loss,
Speaker 3: my dad stopped hunting. We lost my brother and twelve,
Speaker 3: so that really set him back. Brother twenty seven motorcycle accident. Yep,
Speaker 3: so my dad pretty much stopped everything anything that brought
Speaker 3: him joy. So anyway, when in twenty twenty, when my
Speaker 3: dad passed away, I took all his hunting gear and
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I'm going to try to
Speaker 3: reconnect my father the best way I can. So I
Speaker 3: started hunting that year. I got a that fall, I
Speaker 3: got a beautiful hen turkey. We had that for Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 2: Oh really yep.
Speaker 3: It was amazing first time cooking wild turkey and it
Speaker 3: came out amazing cool. So then I did deer season
Speaker 3: shotgun because I wasn't didn't have my dad's bow ready
Speaker 3: in time, and I haven't shot a bow at this
Speaker 3: point for probably a decade. So I did shotgun season
Speaker 3: and I was scouting. I had my tree stand set up,
Speaker 3: I had special access to I don't want to say
Speaker 3: it because I don't want people to blow spot up.
Speaker 3: But it so I probably gave it away anyway, but.
Speaker 10: We can take that out.
Speaker 2: It's all good.
Speaker 3: It's all good, big old. So I set up my
Speaker 3: dad's tree stand. I wore all my dad's clothes. I
Speaker 3: had my dad's ashes in my pocket, and I was
Speaker 3: looking for a secondary spot because I don't want to
Speaker 3: sit in the tree stand, you know too much during
Speaker 3: the two weeks shot and so.
Speaker 10: I got to know the detail though, how do you
Speaker 10: carry your dad's ash.
Speaker 3: I've got a little canister from my dad had a
Speaker 3: big mustache and so he asked me to buy him
Speaker 3: some mustache wax one time. So I bought him some
Speaker 3: mustache wax, and so I have just a small sample
Speaker 3: of him in there.
Speaker 6: I got my grandma's ashes, my allotment of them, in
Speaker 6: a ziploc bag that I just chucked into my work
Speaker 6: backpack here and I actually went to Mexico with them
Speaker 6: and back and totally forgot they were in there. So
Speaker 6: you know, this baggy full of powder.
Speaker 2: Sus got a little dusty.
Speaker 6: No, I mean, nobody said anything about it, but I
Speaker 6: have I've yet had a good, good enough wall. I
Speaker 6: dated a dumper in the lake which I think she'd enjoy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I was just scouting for a secondary spot and
Speaker 3: it was really windy the last couple of days on
Speaker 3: a Sunday. On a Sunday, yeah, so I had my
Speaker 3: glock on me.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 3: And I found this cliff that had like a little
Speaker 3: meadow below it. And I've always seen deer there. I
Speaker 3: see deer signed there all the time. This looks like
Speaker 3: a pretty good advantage point just as a secondary spot.
Speaker 3: So I walked left down the cliff band and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, I see his massive rack sticking out
Speaker 3: of the cliff and I was like the hell. And
Speaker 3: I'm big shed hunter, so like I noticed antlers pretty easily,
Speaker 3: and so I actually FaceTime Chloe and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: you never guess what I found, Like dead deer in
Speaker 3: this cliff. I start walking up to it and it
Speaker 3: lifts its head up and I'm like, oh no. I
Speaker 3: was like, I gotta make some calls. So I I
Speaker 3: ended up calling my friend Jesse, who is the guy
Speaker 3: who introduced me into the wildlife in the Falcon banding.
Speaker 2: And his buck is sunk into a crack right like
Speaker 2: his feet. Yeah, he was like, who's good? Have you
Speaker 2: seen the pictures. I haven't. There's like a they need
Speaker 2: to put it up on the screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can do that. I can send him to
Speaker 3: one of you guys if you want.
Speaker 2: He's in a crack like.
Speaker 3: So, Yeah, he falls into this crack and you got
Speaker 3: to see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's pretty pictures worth a thousand words.
Speaker 4: I don't know where any of your Sorry.
Speaker 2: He's stuck in a crack. There's like a little cliff.
Speaker 1: There's like a little cliff band, and where the cliff band,
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the cliff band, there's a big boulder.
Speaker 2: But there's a there's a crack.
Speaker 11: He's wedged into what he's wedged between the face of
Speaker 11: the cliff and the boulder as it curves in word
Speaker 11: towards the cliff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, four legs are poking down.
Speaker 7: Through there, and and it is and you can.
Speaker 2: Get under him and look up, and you can get
Speaker 2: above him and look down. An impressive deer. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: And I asked him if that's a nice buck around
Speaker 2: an exceptional deer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think unofficially scored like one three.
Speaker 2: Wow, let's see Randa, Yeah, nice book.
Speaker 11: I'm just looking at the picture. Now, there's a picture
Speaker 11: from underneath. Yeah, and it looks like he's Santa Claus
Speaker 11: trying to come down the chimney.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like the deer. Yeah, it was a deer.
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, so he's still alive. And so my
Speaker 3: friend Jesse came.
Speaker 2: Out and you could have tagged it.
Speaker 3: So I got a salvage tag. Yeah, yeah, because at
Speaker 3: first Jesse was like, hey, like, you're gonna have to
Speaker 3: use a tag for this, and I was like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess so, Like it's Massachusetts, deer harder to come by,
Speaker 3: especially Western mass So I was like, yeah, whatever, it's
Speaker 3: not a big deal eventually, So we we contacted e PO. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so the EPO sold st euthanize it, so we did.
Speaker 2: And they let you make the call. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We tried pulling him out, and if you see, the
Speaker 3: fluid in his legs is all built up. I was
Speaker 3: more afraid that he would run still on fight or flight, however,
Speaker 3: be dead very quickly by the coyotes and stuff. So
Speaker 3: I was we made the choice to definitely put him down.
Speaker 3: He's been there for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he don't look like he's getting better.
Speaker 3: No, No, he's he's pretty messed up. So we you know,
Speaker 3: Field dressed him there. A biologist came out. He kept
Speaker 3: making the joke. He's like, man, this is if I
Speaker 3: didn't know better, this be an elk. Dude is the
Speaker 3: biggest dear he'd ever seen. Yeah, it was a big boy.
Speaker 3: We never weighed him, but at least two hundred pounds.
Speaker 2: What do you think he was doing? Do you think
Speaker 2: he slipped off that? I do so.
Speaker 3: Actually when I emailed you, he actually had a cataract
Speaker 3: in his right eye, So I suspect he's walking the
Speaker 3: cliff band on with that cliff on his right so
Speaker 3: he's blinding right eye. You said he was really old,
Speaker 3: really old. Yeah. I think the biologist that came out
Speaker 3: estimated him at eight and a half, close to nine
Speaker 3: years old.
Speaker 1: Me and my wife filled out our end of life
Speaker 1: stuff yesterday.
Speaker 6: Did you describe this as the way I want to
Speaker 6: put myself in the youth?
Speaker 1: I basically would have said in that situation, I'd be
Speaker 1: in the ethanized bucket.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's kind of like a what was that guy
Speaker 11: Aaron Ralston the one hundred and twenty seven hours right right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, his arm off.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's just wedged between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you can see where that poor sucker was
Speaker 6: raking the dirt above him too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one last row.
Speaker 10: And then someone sent you a picture. Someone sent you
Speaker 10: a picture of an elk carcass. It looks like the thing.
Speaker 3: So I was getting a lot of flak for this.
Speaker 2: Oh why why are people messed with you about? Who cares?
Speaker 3: People just can't be happy for other people or just
Speaker 3: I don't want to say happy, but like, this was
Speaker 3: just a real experience that I had, and you put it.
Speaker 1: On social media, right, just say like, oh my god, look,
Speaker 1: yeah that's weird.
Speaker 3: Like cool, it was a cool, unique experience.
Speaker 2: And I took it. Delighted me to see that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so tell me about how what are the criticisms?
Speaker 3: Just like I was poaching? Yeah, and I did have
Speaker 3: in there, yeah right, like.
Speaker 2: Really elaborate trap, yeah yeah they.
Speaker 1: And it's so good at the that you duped the biologist, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally such a shrewd criminal. You shot an ice buck,
Speaker 1: jammed it in there, got the fluid to run down
Speaker 1: its legs, duped.
Speaker 2: A biologist apparently.
Speaker 1: And then walked away without even needing to use your tag,
Speaker 1: You son.
Speaker 7: Of a I'm picturing you wedging that boulder out with
Speaker 7: a stick and standing there with a string and a carrot, and.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you poached it, I can see.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's just that's that's how I do it. So,
Speaker 3: actually the biologist is really cool. He ended up taking
Speaker 3: to his house, and then a couple of days later
Speaker 3: I went to his house and he showed me how
Speaker 3: to skin it and butcher it.
Speaker 2: Really Yeah, Chloe, I'm gonna get away with this. Who'd
Speaker 2: have thought I'd go to the biologists?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, perfect, alibi.
Speaker 2: The meat was good enough.
Speaker 3: We had the backstraps pretty quick.
Speaker 4: We ran out of its rare.
Speaker 3: It was probably the rarest me I've ever eaten.
Speaker 1: So this is like a real thing about like high
Speaker 1: stress people. Yeah, I mean even you want to talk
Speaker 1: about some high stress ye.
Speaker 6: Well, deer was there. He was feeding them corn for
Speaker 6: like a wile. Just want to get it finished.
Speaker 3: In your comments, people were like I would never eat that?
Speaker 3: How could you eat that? Disgusting? And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 3: like I don't know, man, it tastes like deer.
Speaker 4: You didn't like that? Were too high stressed individuals?
Speaker 6: Yeah right, I made a nice Asian dish last night,
Speaker 6: and uh it was it was told told to me
Speaker 6: that the ingredient list was a little too intense, and uh,
Speaker 6: it tasted good, but it was too intense because I
Speaker 6: used uh, gizzard, liver, heart, turkey, testicles and then.
Speaker 2: An old Bucky found wedge and then and stuff.
Speaker 6: It was really really good, but it was the knowledge
Speaker 6: of the ingredient list.
Speaker 2: It's up after a while, said.
Speaker 6: Well, they don't ask.
Speaker 2: No, I think it's good.
Speaker 6: To know what you're eating.
Speaker 2: Bear's eye of all.
Speaker 6: Using it all?
Speaker 2: What were the other criticisms? None as curious, I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean it was so long ago.
Speaker 2: You were Sunday hunting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was Sunday hunting pressured this deer to fall
Speaker 3: off the cliffs.
Speaker 2: Like a buffalo jump.
Speaker 3: Right right.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 2: Had there been some number of people that just said,
Speaker 2: oh that's.
Speaker 3: Cool, Yeah, absolutely totally. I mean they got like I
Speaker 3: have seen it, they got like four hundred shares in
Speaker 3: the first couple hours in the morning.
Speaker 8: Was that buck a total mystery book or did some
Speaker 8: did you have anyone.
Speaker 2: Like I know that buck?
Speaker 3: So, like I said, it's like a lottery area they
Speaker 3: got to apply for. I mean, I've in this area,
Speaker 3: this specific area, but I hunt the surrounding area that's
Speaker 3: legal to hunt outside of the lottery. And I've got
Speaker 3: about ten cameras up. I've never seen them. I have
Speaker 3: cameras there because I shed hunt there every year. Uh
Speaker 3: and so yeah, season was it? Like this was the
Speaker 3: pretty closest shotgun season, So like, oh, sorry, shotgun usually
Speaker 3: starts December, I think, so this was like a week
Speaker 3: before shotgun season.
Speaker 6: To the brain tumor, yeah yeah, but can you imagine
Speaker 6: the story some shotgun hunter would come up with if
Speaker 6: they come came across that deer be like, oh.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, oh I shot it. Oh yeah, I would
Speaker 2: never A lot of people would have been it's Sunday.
Speaker 2: You can't hunt Sunday. But I know where I'm gonna be. Yeah,
Speaker 2: bring along.
Speaker 3: So back to the brain tumor. I uh so it's
Speaker 3: called I can't pronounce it, but acoustic neuroma.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Okay? Cool? I went to public school, so you know.
Speaker 2: As did I think everyone at the table.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So I found out post deployment to Poland
Speaker 3: that I had this brain tumor and that it needed
Speaker 3: to come out. Was a little bit smaller than a
Speaker 3: golf ball couldn't keep it there. Obviously.
Speaker 2: It was always measuring tumors by golf balls.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Randall had a face tumor too.
Speaker 3: Randall, Yeah, this guy.
Speaker 2: That one was the tip of your thumb. They didn't
Speaker 2: dolf didn't do half a golf.
Speaker 7: No, no, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as as two golf balls.
Speaker 3: I was really shooting for a golf ball.
Speaker 11: I thought if they could get that, I'd feel like
Speaker 11: I got to accomplish something.
Speaker 2: It made rand smarter.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, Yeah, I name me a little slower.
Speaker 1: But sor Ry Randall's got a good story where when
Speaker 1: he uh, I think when it all came to a
Speaker 1: thing and you really hit hit the fan.
Speaker 2: He was in the middle of cooking, oh my fishing
Speaker 2: game cookbook. That was my stroke.
Speaker 7: Oh, that was my stroke.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 11: I uh was making a big batch of mule deer
Speaker 11: chili when I had a stroke. And then my wife
Speaker 11: came home later after I'd been taken to the hospital,
Speaker 11: and once it was clear that I was going to
Speaker 11: make it through the day, she said, I packed up
Speaker 11: all that chili, but I haven't eaten any of it yet,
Speaker 11: have you had?
Speaker 2: She we didn't know what had happened.
Speaker 11: She's like, do you think it's okay to eat or
Speaker 11: should I freeze it? And we wait till we get
Speaker 11: the full right up. But actually my tumor when they
Speaker 11: woke up from this, when they woke me up from
Speaker 11: the surgery, Sydney handed me my phone and she said,
Speaker 11: Steve Ornella texted you. But what I said, oh my god,
Speaker 11: you must have heard from cal that badger around no
Speaker 11: which you said you said, was did you ever go
Speaker 11: to that spot I told you about?
Speaker 7: And if you did, did you see any bears there?
Speaker 11: And I was like sitting there in the hospital with
Speaker 11: like blood just like and I texted, yeah, saw a
Speaker 11: bunch of bears, maybe six. And then immediately you responded,
Speaker 11: was it all just thousand cups?
Speaker 2: Continue?
Speaker 7: Those are my Those are my meat eater related health jokes.
Speaker 3: I said, yeah. So I basically when we found out
Speaker 3: about the brain tumor, I actually ironically found out on
Speaker 3: my brother's death anniversary. So I was like, just really bizarre.
Speaker 3: I was alone, which really sucked. I shouldn't have like
Speaker 3: opened my patient portal and saw the diagnosis.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and you were already getting little deaf in
Speaker 2: your right ear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I already was once.
Speaker 2: Do you think that was related to well.
Speaker 3: I mean I knew it was related to Basically, the
Speaker 3: Army told me I had nerve damage and just like
Speaker 3: from gunfire and just loud noises being a mechanic. All right, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 3: makes sense. I guess it's not uncommon for people in
Speaker 3: the military to go deaf, especially in my shooting year.
Speaker 3: I guess because I'm right handed. Well I shoot rifle
Speaker 3: right handed. So I told Chloe. We went to one
Speaker 3: of my best friend's weddings, and then at their wedding,
Speaker 3: I kind of looked at Chloe. We had been engaged already,
Speaker 3: and I was like, why don't we just get married
Speaker 3: before the surgery so we can you know, in case
Speaker 3: anything happens, you'll be you know, five hundred thousand dollars richer.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, So anyway, so we decided to have
Speaker 3: a quick backyard wedding. It really sucked, as it wasn't
Speaker 3: the wedding we wanted, but you know.
Speaker 6: But just to save you here didn't suck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, reapproach that right. I was watching her carefully.
Speaker 7: She didn't react.
Speaker 6: Also, the best moment of my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah next time, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was I.
Speaker 2: Had a big wedding, and I tell people, I'm like,
Speaker 2: don't do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a waste of money.
Speaker 2: You just forget about it.
Speaker 1: Hansel Fast You're like talking to you know, like, oh
Speaker 1: remember me, Yeah, I was your Sunday school, you know, and.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, like the night's over. You're like,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of money.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean it was a very form We
Speaker 5: had Chipotle catered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the way to do it.
Speaker 7: Was.
Speaker 2: It was awesome, perfect wedding, perfect wed It was great.
Speaker 2: We had smoked eel.
Speaker 3: That sounds interesting. Uh So yeah, we got married, and
Speaker 3: then I like, It's what sucked was like I really
Speaker 3: couldn't be as present as I wanted because I was,
Speaker 3: you know, sure prepping for a very serious surgery. I
Speaker 3: was very drunk, very fast.
Speaker 5: To be fair, I wasn't very present either. I was like,
Speaker 5: I don't know what's happening. It was like we played
Speaker 5: it in two weeks.
Speaker 2: So you're like, oh, I knows, I might be sitting
Speaker 2: on a five hundred.
Speaker 3: Grand lucky you. Yeah, so we you know, the surgery
Speaker 3: went well. There was a high risk of face paralysis,
Speaker 3: balance being really really like no balance or just having
Speaker 3: difficulty balancing and some cognitive concerns. I have all of
Speaker 3: the above two degree without the proles. That's fine, but
Speaker 3: basically the nerve is really growing wrapped up and I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: the tumor is growing all wrapped up in my facial nerves,
Speaker 3: my balanced nerve, my taste nerve. So there's a lot
Speaker 3: of risk. But basically the VA, and I will praise
Speaker 3: the VA all day for this. They basically were like,
Speaker 3: what hospitle do you want to go to? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: who pays for this? And They're like, we do. I'm like,
Speaker 3: let's go to Boston. And so I went to some
Speaker 3: of the best doctors in the world for this and
Speaker 3: they took really good care of me. So that happened.
Speaker 3: That happened October third, and I was good to go
Speaker 3: in the woods shotgun hunting in December.
Speaker 2: Totally deaf right here, totally definitely right here.
Speaker 3: It's it's challenging. This past season. I had a dose
Speaker 3: sneak up on me when I was sitting in my
Speaker 3: saddle and it was a really cool experience. Is my
Speaker 3: first rut hunt ever at my dad's bow, and so
Speaker 3: I was sitting in this in the saddle, and I
Speaker 3: heard something, but I couldn't. It's just really hard for
Speaker 3: me to trianglate sound. That's why when one of these
Speaker 3: guys talking.
Speaker 9: Yeah, locating a gobbler could be brutal.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I imagine I haven't tried it yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are our body Clay. He's deaf, mostly deaf in
Speaker 1: one ear. Okay, he can't tell where he can't tell
Speaker 1: where he comes from. I feel like he said kind
Speaker 1: of like ruined in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: It's ruined Turkey.
Speaker 3: And for him, that's interesting.
Speaker 2: I haven't got to have someone to like.
Speaker 1: He kind of needs someone to point, like, well, he
Speaker 1: can hear it, but he always points. He points like
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty degrees off everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this dough is walking behind me, and I'm
Speaker 3: also like, my eyes really messed up as well. So
Speaker 3: I didn't have my glasses on because I shoot bow lefty,
Speaker 3: so my right eye, sorry, my left eye is good.
Speaker 3: So I turned and I was like, I think that's
Speaker 3: a dough. So I had to like do another turn
Speaker 3: this way to look over my left shoulder, and I
Speaker 3: was like, all right, that's a dough. But she kept
Speaker 3: looking over her back and I was like, oh, there's
Speaker 3: got to be a buck on her, and so I
Speaker 3: wrapped underneath my tether, grab my bow, and I just
Speaker 3: waited and this big brute of a ten pointer came
Speaker 3: running in and right as she walked away, I sprayed
Speaker 3: some estress in the air that got him just really
Speaker 3: stuck in the area. What really, Yeah, oh man, he
Speaker 3: stopped as I got.
Speaker 6: To push back. You keep knocking your mental faculties. But like,
Speaker 6: I wouldn't be thinking about any of that stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't know at this point. I'm you know, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3: I'm not an amazing hunter. I've honestly only been hunting
Speaker 3: since twenty twenty on my own, so I'm doing a
Speaker 3: lot of this like trial and air stuff on my own.
Speaker 3: And I just well, that won't ever stopped.
Speaker 1: Just so, yeah, oh for sure, for sure, you'll never
Speaker 1: be like got that all figured out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3: Problem, sorry to god, man, ass overhead stops and just
Speaker 3: start sniffing like crazy and.
Speaker 2: It so as you saw it. You put a little squirt.
Speaker 3: Out as the dough walked away. So the buck was
Speaker 3: about a minute, maybe two minutes behind her, and oh yeah,
Speaker 3: it was. It was cool. So I draw back and
Speaker 3: I was off by five yards, dropped under his belly.
Speaker 2: He kicked up, I'm off by five yards. Yeah that's
Speaker 2: fifteen feet. Yeah yeah, so what I so.
Speaker 7: I didn't range him?
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I was like too jittery. I just like, I really
Speaker 3: just wanted to make a shot. I thought he was
Speaker 3: at twenty five yards. He was more like thirty five yards,
Speaker 3: so maybe ten yards.
Speaker 2: Oh you're distance, judge, I missed. I went right under
Speaker 2: his belly, right, shooting a way out there. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, right on, judge.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Was it bigger than the than the than the crack book.
Speaker 3: I don't think so. No, the crack Buck, at least
Speaker 3: body wise, is bigger. Yeah yeah, but he was a
Speaker 3: nice ten point. I've been watching, and so he jumps
Speaker 3: snorts a couple of times. I'm like, do I got
Speaker 3: another shot? I was like, but I need to range
Speaker 3: him this time to figure out like how far he was,
Speaker 3: and he was after the shot, he pushed back about
Speaker 3: fifty yards, and I just wasn't comfortable shooting at fifty
Speaker 3: given how little experience I had at the bow at
Speaker 3: this point, so I let him let him go. But
Speaker 3: it was a really cool experience. Nonetheless, Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 3: brain tumor. Uh so the balancing Basically, if you take
Speaker 3: away my vision, my balance is still pretty jacked up
Speaker 3: and pretty challenging because I don't have that inner ear.
Speaker 3: I guess going for me anymore. Yeah, I get rdy go.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you got to beat you because you're balanced. I
Speaker 3: don't know, man, I.
Speaker 2: Just thought, yeah, I thought you kicked my eye. I
Speaker 2: thought you'd kick my head.
Speaker 3: Days are over.
Speaker 2: But now I know your balance is off. I might
Speaker 2: take a while shot.
Speaker 3: Let's try it.
Speaker 2: Let's go now. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I remember the first time walking in Uh I
Speaker 3: had my red light on and I was walking into
Speaker 3: the shotgun and I was eight ship like seven. Yeah, man,
Speaker 3: I was getting so frustrated. It sucked.
Speaker 2: And you probably think you got lived like that the
Speaker 2: rest of your life too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was because like this is two months after surgery,
Speaker 3: so it's like this is it, this is what's going
Speaker 3: to be. Like I just had surgery on your head.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the docks and oh that's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah I didn't tell them. Uh yeah, So I fell
Speaker 3: a bunch, but I had the where with all the
Speaker 3: changed the light color to green and that so it's
Speaker 3: a red blue and green and then white light obviously,
Speaker 3: so I changed it to green and that was just
Speaker 3: a little bit better.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was helpful, just like I could see
Speaker 3: a little bit better and the depth perception was better.
Speaker 2: So do you got a corrective lens on your het?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, so what I was my right eye? Yeah,
Speaker 3: because I'm telling you, guys are like dude, just making
Speaker 3: all this stuff. So in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: You laughing about laughing about the next.
Speaker 4: Details, which is really funny, like just retelling.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Story.
Speaker 6: So and it's kind of surgery.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So prior to me leaving for Poland, I was shed
Speaker 3: hunting and I had a stick puncture my eyeball, which
Speaker 3: one my right eye. So that's why I wear glasses.
Speaker 3: Now this this, my left lens, is just a lens.
Speaker 3: There's no correction there. So I was, like the surgeon said,
Speaker 3: is one one hundredth of an inch from losing my
Speaker 3: eye or my vision in that eye? A stick, a stick, Yeah,
Speaker 3: straightened my eyeball.
Speaker 4: With like such velocity that like ruptured it. It was
Speaker 4: like an open, open globe.
Speaker 3: It's called I can show you pictures of that after
Speaker 3: I had stitches in my cornea. It's absolutely was it
Speaker 3: a branch? It just yeah, yeah, just literally like slink
Speaker 3: shotted right into my eye. Oh, I was I was
Speaker 3: leaving for for training for the army, and I just
Speaker 3: was really excited to take my dog out for a
Speaker 3: shed hunt. So I left work early, got into woods.
Speaker 3: I was mile into the woods and whack hits me
Speaker 3: in the eyeball. And I usually wear like it was
Speaker 3: so cloudy that I didn't have you know, I usually
Speaker 3: like wear some type of glasses, but all I had
Speaker 3: was sunglasses. So I actually took them off and put
Speaker 3: them on my hat. So if I had just kept
Speaker 3: them on, I probably would have been obviously fine.
Speaker 2: But damn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So four years I've had this will be this
Speaker 3: shoulder surgery from the bear attack on Friday will be
Speaker 3: the fourth surgery in three years. Actually, Okay, so it's
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to bounce back.
Speaker 2: No, no, it's all helpful background. Yeah, let's move on
Speaker 2: to Wyoming, all.
Speaker 3: Right, cool, So, because we want to.
Speaker 1: Get a picture of a totally debilitated man, and I
Speaker 1: hope you come.
Speaker 7: Back next year if you get struck by lightning.
Speaker 1: Right, A sensory deprived, the sensory deprived, sort of half
Speaker 1: their man in the mountains.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were actually like starting to feel like recovered
Speaker 5: enough from all that that were like, let's do it.
Speaker 4: Let's finally go on our honeymoon.
Speaker 2: This is the honeymoon. This is the honeymoon.
Speaker 4: Honeyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, HiT's keep coming, right.
Speaker 4: So we rented a mini van.
Speaker 3: And where did you wint the minivan? Enterprise?
Speaker 2: No, I mean I don't mean like.
Speaker 3: Oh, so you drove out, he'll plug for enterprise.
Speaker 2: So you drove out. You rented a mini van to
Speaker 2: go on a.
Speaker 3: Road trip for a three week trip.
Speaker 6: What did you guys?
Speaker 1: Did you do?
Speaker 6: Chrysler Town and Country.
Speaker 3: Was a Chrysler of the mini van.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the reasonable daily rate.
Speaker 9: Living in Violet built a.
Speaker 4: Little like temporary bed platform in the back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was, uh.
Speaker 9: Bag van life.
Speaker 2: Has van life slash rental.
Speaker 3: Yes, So we basically were planning on to do some climbing,
Speaker 3: do some shed hunting and exploring, and we were softly
Speaker 3: kind of looking to possibly move out to Wyoming. So
Speaker 3: in the next few years when she's done at school.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, actually got like a transition coming up.
Speaker 3: So we had spent three days in the bad Lands,
Speaker 3: which I just I love the bad Lands.
Speaker 2: Let me ask, are you still a mechanic technically? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah so in the army.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: On the civilian side, I'm what's called electronics mechanic for
Speaker 3: the army, so.
Speaker 2: It's you're still working there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm an Army reservist mill tech, which is
Speaker 3: a dual status position, so I'm contracted in to stay
Speaker 3: in the reserves as long as I hold this civilian
Speaker 3: job understood. So it's like I called it, backdoor draft.
Speaker 3: Kind of sucks, but it's a pays the bills. So
Speaker 3: we spent three days in the bad Lands, which I
Speaker 3: love the bad Lands. I love how under traffic it
Speaker 3: is compared to the other works, and it's got just
Speaker 3: a lot of cool stuff. So I showed her that
Speaker 3: because that's somewhere I've been, and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: We had a great time there. We went hiking in
Speaker 3: the Big Horn National Forest, got charged by a moose.
Speaker 3: That was fun.
Speaker 4: I thought that was gonna be our scariest animal encounter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I got us all on top of yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So I got us all on a boulder, her,
Speaker 3: my dog and I and we just watched her kind
Speaker 3: of just struck around being angry. She I was. I
Speaker 3: was a little worried. I was like, we could be
Speaker 3: up here for hours. I don't I don't have a
Speaker 3: lot of dogs. Yeah, yeah, I know that.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was actually the one that that spooked them.
Speaker 5: And I'm terrified of moose anytime we run into them
Speaker 5: in Massachusetts Chad hunting. Shane makes fun of me because
Speaker 5: I'm always like shaking. Like there's one time I pointed
Speaker 5: one out near.
Speaker 3: Shaking like the girl from Jurassic Park, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I mean it was only like ten feet away,
Speaker 3: so for you know, context, and I just like looked
Speaker 3: at it and I was like, this is right after
Speaker 3: my eye injury, so I had literally had an eye
Speaker 3: patch on and I only had one eye and I
Speaker 3: was just looking at the ground making sure I didn't fall.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is shed hunting, Yeah, this is yeah, this
Speaker 1: was in Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So she's like pointing at this movie and I'm like,
Speaker 3: all right, it would already charge us if it didn't,
Speaker 3: if it didn't want us here, And it just kept
Speaker 3: eating its food looking at us, and then it just
Speaker 3: did it one eighty and walked away.
Speaker 5: So yeah, So during this most recent encounter, I was
Speaker 5: the one that uh jumped them saw yeah, and saw
Speaker 5: the calf first, and it like took off and I
Speaker 5: was like, whow all right, like now this is a
Speaker 5: safe distance away, like I'm gonna I'm gonna take a picture.
Speaker 4: And I was looking at the picture. I was like,
Speaker 4: looks kind of small.
Speaker 5: And then and then I see mom like walking around
Speaker 5: these boulders, just like grilling me, and I'm like, oh no,
Speaker 5: So I for Shane, And because I didn't know what
Speaker 5: to do, I don't I don't have the knowledge that
Speaker 5: Shane has. So I just radioed to him and was like, uh,
Speaker 5: I have a very angry mama moose that's not backing down,
Speaker 5: and I'm like just trying to back up the hill
Speaker 5: and give her space.
Speaker 4: And yeah, she was just coming after me.
Speaker 6: So and at this point, you know, if something bad happens,
Speaker 6: it's going to happen to him. Get him over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, I got us all on a boulder
Speaker 3: and she stayed for like fIF lingered around for like
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes, and then I could see her calf down
Speaker 3: in the tree line, so she went to the calf
Speaker 3: and we got out of there pretty quick after that.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to stick around. Yes, yep, that was
Speaker 3: in the Bighorn yep. So then we stayed in Cody
Speaker 3: for a night. Then we got to Yellowstone and we
Speaker 3: camped out there for three days and that was awesome.
Speaker 3: We just drove around photographed animals. It's just like a
Speaker 3: hobby of mine. I just like taking pictures of animals
Speaker 3: as much as you know, anything else I do.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 3: Sold some photographs, but haven't made up for the equipment
Speaker 3: I've paid for. Uh yeah, So Yellowstone is cool. I've
Speaker 3: never been there before. It's nice to get there before
Speaker 3: the crazy Taurus. And then we were heading south to
Speaker 3: Moab and we're just going to drive through the Tetons
Speaker 3: for a few hours, just check that out. We had
Speaker 3: done some research about the great gray owls and Signal
Speaker 3: Mountain is kind of a hot spot, so that's when.
Speaker 4: We at least read it. Told me so read it.
Speaker 2: That's a good place to see a great gray owl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we parked, we walked up Signal Mountain Road,
Speaker 3: and so it was the three of us, two of
Speaker 3: us with the dog. We walked up there together for
Speaker 3: about half a mile.
Speaker 6: Maybe it's not a remote back country.
Speaker 3: Not at all. Yeah, yep, and it was.
Speaker 5: It was close to cars, but there were so many
Speaker 5: cyclists and pedestrians and stuff.
Speaker 3: There's dozens of people up there that day.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So as we're walking up there was actually like a
Speaker 3: safari like a I don't know, yeah that country guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and like we so we bumped into them
Speaker 3: and they're like, oh yeah, we went on and off
Speaker 3: the trail. They didn't see any sign of owls, but
Speaker 3: they're out there somewhere and they're like, didn't see any
Speaker 3: bear sign either. I'm like, you're like and they asked me, like,
Speaker 3: do you have bear sprayers like cats?
Speaker 2: Right here?
Speaker 3: Right on my f h F.
Speaker 1: Good job you had you had the spray holster underneath the.
Speaker 3: I didn't have the holster. I ended up buying because
Speaker 3: I've never thought about bear spray until coming out West.
Speaker 3: He's the black bear. I know that they can be
Speaker 3: dangerous still, but every every black bear ever see their run.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, they're running away from me. So anyway, so
Speaker 3: I just bought like some cheap elastics to hold it
Speaker 3: in place. I did stop at the meat eater store
Speaker 3: let yesterday and buy the Holster though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell what you were here for.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I like to think they would have given
Speaker 2: it to you. You always got it.
Speaker 11: You walk in there, and do you know who I am?
Speaker 11: Do you have any idea who I am? We've gotten looks.
Speaker 3: I think some people do know, because we've definitely some
Speaker 3: people looking at us a couple of times. So anyway, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's going on.
Speaker 4: Good Morning America, will do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. So eventually Chloe decided like, hey, like, you know,
Speaker 3: I only have the bear spray, I'm gonna go back
Speaker 3: to the cars, like cool, I'm just gonna give myself
Speaker 3: an hour up here. I'll bounce on and off the road.
Speaker 5: And I knew too, like I had Cadence with me,
Speaker 5: our dog, and I wasn't gonna be able to go
Speaker 5: everywhere that he wanted to go, and like, you're not
Speaker 5: supposed to take dogs off the more than a hundred
Speaker 5: feet off the road in national parks, so I want
Speaker 5: to be respectful of that too. So yeah, I just
Speaker 5: turned around and I was going to iron out some
Speaker 5: things with our itinerary and whatnot.
Speaker 4: And yeah, sorry, no.
Speaker 6: You're very You're endearing yourself to this crowd following the
Speaker 6: rules in a national park, especially fleash dogs.
Speaker 5: They're supposed to protect dogs from wildlife and wildlife from dogs.
Speaker 4: And you know, we can't help, but wonder how things might.
Speaker 6: Have you actually like read the signs and stuff all
Speaker 6: the printed materials out there. That's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what saved my life, partly, partly.
Speaker 5: And probably why our dogs still alive. I mean, I
Speaker 5: don't know what would have happened if she had been there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I had been walking all over the place
Speaker 3: up there. I have a pretty good sense of direction
Speaker 3: that like naturally, I had a compass with me. My
Speaker 3: phone's GPS was not working very great, zero service for
Speaker 3: the most part. So after an hour goes by, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I look at my watch. I had set a timer
Speaker 3: for an hour and fifteen that my alarm went off.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh shit, Like, you know, I told
Speaker 3: her I'd be back in an hour. She's probably getting
Speaker 3: a little worried. So I looked at the GPS and
Speaker 3: basically it was just both on X and Google Maps
Speaker 3: was just pictulated like you parked here and here's yours.
Speaker 2: You had to downloaded the map.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because we didn't discuss going to this location until
Speaker 3: the drive there, and at that point I had no
Speaker 3: service to download anything.
Speaker 5: This was like, let's pull over and stretch our legs
Speaker 5: for a second. I heard there might be owls here, right, so.
Speaker 3: Nice, but you know, it's still pointed me in the
Speaker 3: right direction back to the parking lot.
Speaker 2: How far are you from the parking.
Speaker 3: Lot when the attack happened?
Speaker 2: Ye, I don't know at this point.
Speaker 3: At this point it's hard to say.
Speaker 5: Well, so up the road we had gone three quarters
Speaker 5: of a mile and then yeah, but.
Speaker 3: I wandered all up on top of Signal Mountain, so
Speaker 3: I any any the furthest probably was maybe a couple
Speaker 3: of miles.
Speaker 2: How far from the road were you.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe from single mountain road? Probably just a mile
Speaker 3: At any given time, it was never more than a mile.
Speaker 3: So I start b lining back to the parking lot.
Speaker 2: Like you're you bush wagon down right? Yep?
Speaker 3: And this straight line yep. And so just basically walking
Speaker 3: mostly east in a little southeast and uh, and I
Speaker 3: just I'm in the woods all the time. So I
Speaker 3: moved really fast and efficiently, and I think that was
Speaker 3: part of my problem, was it was really windy out.
Speaker 3: I think if I remember correctly, when was up to
Speaker 3: forty miles per hour that day. So as I'm going
Speaker 3: through the woods.
Speaker 2: And what's the topography, like, are you going to steep?
Speaker 2: Is it steep?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say steep, No, it was there was it
Speaker 3: was you know, it was a big hill, but not
Speaker 3: overly steep. I can I have it all plotted on
Speaker 3: an on X seconds.
Speaker 2: It's got a mature timber on it. Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, lots of down trees. So I'm at this point
Speaker 3: at the bottom of Segnal Mountain kind of and I'm
Speaker 3: like in this weird valley and then there's just like
Speaker 3: hill protruding out. And once I get around that hill,
Speaker 3: I see the cub running.
Speaker 2: And you're how far from the car at this point?
Speaker 3: I want to say, fifty to seventy yards?
Speaker 2: Oh you're back at the car.
Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry, I thought you said the cub not
Speaker 3: the car.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, how far from the car?
Speaker 3: Half a mile? Like point actually point six got you
Speaker 3: just halling ass, halling ass, making noise And I was talking.
Speaker 6: Out loud, but tons of ambient noise as much as
Speaker 6: I wind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right right, It's like so the bear didn't
Speaker 3: hear me.
Speaker 2: You were talking a lot. What were you saying?
Speaker 3: I basically was just I was actually more or less
Speaker 3: in the army, like when we march, we sing cadences
Speaker 3: and yeah, so it's it's kind of like it's just
Speaker 3: something that's always just like grained in my like just
Speaker 3: sinched in my mind.
Speaker 1: So you know, just give give me a sample cadence.
Speaker 1: I don't know the one you're doing. I just want
Speaker 1: to sample cast so naughty.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, like not like the old I can't say
Speaker 3: that one nevermind. No, just like there's some like uh,
Speaker 3: airborne ones. So you just be like, I hear the
Speaker 3: choppers hovering, they're hovering overhead. They come to get the wounded.
Speaker 3: They've come to get the dead.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, you know so that sounds more like a shandy
Speaker 2: yeah kind of.
Speaker 3: So anyway, I just kind of just doing that and
Speaker 3: just talking out loud.
Speaker 2: Thinking about bears.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I was bears were a big concern for me,
Speaker 3: Like not that I like I was overly afraid of them.
Speaker 3: I just was like, I know we're going to see them.
Speaker 2: You're not baranoid, you're better aware, right, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking about them, and I knew they
Speaker 3: existed out there and it was their home. And so
Speaker 3: I see this cub running about fifty yards ahead of me,
Speaker 3: and I was like, fuck running the other way, yeah,
Speaker 3: running away, And I was like, I know, Mom's got
Speaker 3: to be nearby. And so the first thing I did
Speaker 3: was I took my bear spray out. And a lot
Speaker 3: of people are like, oh, I bet you wish you
Speaker 3: had a ten millimeter or this, blah blah blah. Sure,
Speaker 3: I always I always feel a little better when I
Speaker 3: have a gun on me. However, in this situation, it
Speaker 3: just wouldn't have worked by the time I saw that.
Speaker 3: When I saw the cub having the bear spray out
Speaker 3: pulling the safety off, within three seconds, Mom was on.
Speaker 1: Me, all right, let me let let's back up, not
Speaker 1: back up, but I just want to I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this three seconds realkod you like, you register
Speaker 1: a cup running fifty yards away. You know it's a
Speaker 1: grizzly oh yeah, just something about it?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, and.
Speaker 1: You without it, without without hearing or seeing anything of
Speaker 1: the sow. You know, you just spooked a cup and
Speaker 1: you pull your bear spray out.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and you throw the safety on the spray I
Speaker 3: was trying to Yeah, okay, so this is all like
Speaker 3: super fast, right, and then what's the very next thing?
Speaker 2: You register.
Speaker 3: Mom's eyes at what distance?
Speaker 2: A couple of feet a couple of feet.
Speaker 8: Coming straight at you or from the side.
Speaker 3: Just diagonally to my left, so just barely like in
Speaker 3: my ten o'clock a few feet ye, And as soon
Speaker 3: as I saw her, your attention on that cub, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: so I was looking at the cub.
Speaker 6: You could have potentially been looking over the top of Mom's.
Speaker 3: Back and uh so I think she was already charging me.
Speaker 3: I just did it, like I said, was windy.
Speaker 1: Like if that cub hadn't been that, you probably would
Speaker 1: have picked up something. Yeah, yeah, you'd have picked up movement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I was just so gave you.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: I think part of the issue was they were actually
Speaker 3: walking towards me, and I was walking towards them at
Speaker 3: one point. And I can reiterate on that after after
Speaker 3: post attack. So I remember her amber eyes like they're
Speaker 3: just they're in my head for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: And I know you were talking about your bear encounter
Speaker 3: and how it really affected you for a long time.
Speaker 3: I closed my eyes and I see your eyes and
Speaker 3: I just kind of as she jumped up, I just said,
Speaker 3: no bear, no bear, and I I just knew I
Speaker 3: didn't have time to just spray, I guess.
Speaker 1: So when she jumped up, what what did it seem
Speaker 1: like she was coming at just like generally you kay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, just she was just gonna hit whatever part of
Speaker 3: me she could hit with her paws. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 3: even sure. I mean her her muzzle is right there
Speaker 3: and everything.
Speaker 2: Was it a mouth open? Yeah, So she's coming at you? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I just like reading the kioski and when.
Speaker 1: You when you think about it, you're standing, Okay, how
Speaker 1: when she's on the ground on all fours, where is
Speaker 1: her back on you?
Speaker 3: It's hard to say. I was so fixated on her face.
Speaker 3: I don't, I don't. I can't put a size on that.
Speaker 3: But I know when she got on her hind leg
Speaker 3: she was taller than me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So so you kind of went from like looking at
Speaker 6: or even down maybe.
Speaker 3: Down, definitely down on down. And when she jumped, she
Speaker 3: got kind of like it was like more of a pounce,
Speaker 3: but she was definitely taller than me. And I reverted
Speaker 3: back to the signs outside the trails. It's like if
Speaker 3: you are getting attacked by a bear, get down, lay
Speaker 3: down on your belly and cover your your neck with
Speaker 3: your hands and keeping your arteries clear, you know, protected,
Speaker 3: and just waited out and try to play dead. Uh.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what that first bite on the shoulder
Speaker 3: which ended up you know, I didn't know at the time,
Speaker 3: but she broke my shoulder and I have a complete
Speaker 3: what's it called this?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 4: Sorry, you have a displaced displace fracture? You're a Roman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that bite I'm not have.
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell you or blow Yeah, I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 3: But that's where she tackled me. Simultaneously, as I started
Speaker 3: to like turn and get down, that's when she jumped
Speaker 3: on my back. She bit my shoulder, She bit down
Speaker 3: through my so canine went down through my trap and
Speaker 3: then her lower mandible canine went up into my lat
Speaker 3: and so I have like pretty good gash on my
Speaker 3: lat The puncture in my trap was just crazy as
Speaker 3: like really really deep.
Speaker 8: Her canine bang right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So she took me to the ground and she
Speaker 3: kind of like flopped and I flopped like trotten in
Speaker 3: front of me. Turned around. I screamed from the first bite.
Speaker 2: Well, and she did what now, Like like.
Speaker 3: When she tackled me, she kept running after she hit me,
Speaker 3: she kept running in front of me, and then she
Speaker 3: just did a one eighty and stepped on my back.
Speaker 3: And I've never felt more powerless in my entire life.
Speaker 6: It was almost like world wrestling, like a little victory
Speaker 6: lap after.
Speaker 2: I got him.
Speaker 1: And then when she blew through you and did that bite,
Speaker 1: did it linger or was it just like a pass
Speaker 1: through um?
Speaker 6: She didn't grab yet shake.
Speaker 3: I don't think she did. I don't know. I think
Speaker 3: there would have been more damage if she shook. But
Speaker 3: also she did break my shoulder, so maybe so when
Speaker 3: she stepped on my back, she just like bit one
Speaker 3: of my legs, and I was like, I just basically
Speaker 3: started just putting my face in a dirt and shaking
Speaker 3: my face in a dirt, trying to like muffle as
Speaker 3: much of my groaning and screaming as I could. So
Speaker 3: she bit me a few times. I couldn't tell you
Speaker 3: which leg at what point. I do believe the last
Speaker 3: bite in my leg was my right one, and that
Speaker 3: was the worst one because she had actually picked me
Speaker 3: up from my legs and I just basically was planking
Speaker 3: in her mouth. I was trying to stay as stiff
Speaker 3: as possible so she couldn't. She would have a harder
Speaker 3: time rolling me over and getting to my vitals.
Speaker 10: God thinking on his feet again, amazing, Yeah, jose a grizzly.
Speaker 6: It was a big planker. But I don't know you
Speaker 6: thinking about that in that moment.
Speaker 3: It was I just I remember just telling myself, just
Speaker 3: shut up, shut up, stay as stiff as possible. But
Speaker 3: I think, like at this point, the last bite she
Speaker 3: I swear to it hurts so bad that I let
Speaker 3: out like another loud scream.
Speaker 8: Were you like stretched out or curled.
Speaker 3: Up, stretched out, laying down what we in the military
Speaker 3: would call prone, like laying you know you're taking a.
Speaker 6: Laying down shot, right, yeah, yep. Meanwhile, Chloe's back the car,
Speaker 6: being like every time, every time it's an hour, an
Speaker 6: hour turns into.
Speaker 11: Two an hour for an hour and fifteen minutes.
Speaker 7: All too after.
Speaker 3: That is so true. She's a She's a saint.
Speaker 4: Do I tell them about the text message?
Speaker 2: I mean, you can because he said that yet or not?
Speaker 6: No, No, maybe we'll get that closure.
Speaker 3: We'll get that in a second. Okay, So anyway, uh,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure like her one of her canines had
Speaker 3: like tickled my femur and that's why I just got
Speaker 3: so pain. Yeah, and so she dropped me and it
Speaker 3: was just like, uh.
Speaker 2: Well did she have you off the ground a little bit?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, she just left me up by the leg,
Speaker 3: by the leg my my face was still on the
Speaker 3: ground though.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And when I screamed from.
Speaker 6: How much do you think you weigh?
Speaker 3: Do I weigh?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay yeah, and she was probably three eighty four hundred, So.
Speaker 2: Now I think you would kick my eyes even with
Speaker 2: all the all the.
Speaker 6: Disabilities, you're just gonna keep thinking the whole way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh so yeah, she dropped me and it was just
Speaker 3: like I don't describe it, but it was just like
Speaker 3: a I don't know, just nonchalantly just dropped me and
Speaker 3: then just stepped on my back again like she's casual, right,
Speaker 3: just like this motherfucker's dead, like he's I'm gonna get Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well she was like she's like I'm gonna put you down.
Speaker 2: Now. Does she vocalize it all?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's hard to describe. It was just like
Speaker 3: I mean, you've you've heard him like that like pant
Speaker 3: that they have, Like yeah, well, like it was.
Speaker 2: That so no crazy like barking.
Speaker 3: Not at all, just like a yeah, it's I can't
Speaker 3: describe it, but it's like that normal like if you
Speaker 3: hear too gris like if you watch a documentary two
Speaker 3: grizzlies fighting or something like that. So that like I
Speaker 3: screamed pretty loud from that, she drops me, and.
Speaker 1: She doesn't seem to be uh after this, she doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be Like it's a hard question to ask,
Speaker 1: but does she seem like jacked up and pumped up? Oh,
Speaker 1: she griled up and like stiff legged, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was so dude, it was so violent, Okay,
Speaker 3: like she want like she wanted me dead. But it's
Speaker 3: easy because like the more I look at my wound,
Speaker 3: like my scars, now, I'm like, you know, this could
Speaker 3: have been so much worse, like just bit you on
Speaker 3: the head and killed And the fact that like she
Speaker 3: didn't just completely rip like grapefruit size chunks out of
Speaker 3: my thigh, Like I just I don't understand why and
Speaker 3: how she bit me.
Speaker 2: We had a shed hunter get killed that far from
Speaker 2: your couple. I read about that and then.
Speaker 1: I talked to someone who'd done an investigation on that,
Speaker 1: and they just they felt that it was instant, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I never got I don't know what
Speaker 1: the injury was, but then it was instant.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean that one bite, right, could that
Speaker 2: one bite in the right spot?
Speaker 3: Just yeah, I'm so damn lucky she didn't get in
Speaker 3: any of my my leg arteries or anything like that.
Speaker 6: So now she's standing on top of you again.
Speaker 3: And so I had screamed.
Speaker 1: Like placing her front feet on you, Yeah, at least
Speaker 1: one like a like pining you down or anything, and uh.
Speaker 6: Wave into the crowd like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's when she went to bite. You know,
Speaker 3: I suspect would have been my neck in my head.
Speaker 3: She obviously she got my hand, my right.
Speaker 2: Hand here and see your back, I see your back, Yeah, we.
Speaker 3: Can show you after. And then she got that behind me. Watch.
Speaker 3: So that's some teeth, yes, those yeah, yeah, those are
Speaker 3: bite marks.
Speaker 2: Do you have claw marks all over you?
Speaker 3: Just a little, but those have healed like they're scarred,
Speaker 3: but they're not as deep as you would expect for orange
Speaker 3: claws to cut you. Yeah, so she uh, she went
Speaker 3: for the head and thankfully, I still had the bear
Speaker 3: spray in my hand. So you're holding the spray the
Speaker 3: whole time. Yeah, unbeknownst to me. Honestly, I didn't even
Speaker 3: know I still had it. So when she bit down
Speaker 3: at this point, I wasn't feeling So the.
Speaker 1: Bear sprays in your hand and you're still trying to
Speaker 1: protect your back, right yep.
Speaker 3: So just trying to protect the back of my neck
Speaker 3: and my neck and my head.
Speaker 2: Is your finger through the ring yep? Got it? Yep?
Speaker 3: And so she bit down, like I said, she got
Speaker 3: my wrist in my hand and then she got a
Speaker 3: mouthful of the can.
Speaker 1: So when I paused, you want said, sure we had
Speaker 1: a person, not we had a girl on one time
Speaker 1: that got mold.
Speaker 2: H Oh.
Speaker 1: She got tore up pretty good. But she was in
Speaker 1: the same situation where she's down and it's biting here
Speaker 1: on her back, and she's holding it and just sprays
Speaker 1: it in the face while it's biting her.
Speaker 3: And that's what saved her.
Speaker 1: It just happened like had the spray in her chest
Speaker 1: and just is able to do like a blind shot
Speaker 1: over her shoulder.
Speaker 3: That's incredible, and got it had dropped her.
Speaker 10: Did you ever go through your mind to try to
Speaker 10: discharge the spray.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know it's still holding it. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it wasn't an instinctual thing at that point.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, all this has happened within like ten seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, How many seconds do you think at this point?
Speaker 3: I think the whole attack was probably sixty to one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty seconds. Oh so maybe two minutes tops. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So once she hit you were like, I mean, you
Speaker 1: said it a bunch of times, real clear, but just
Speaker 1: reiterating like you're holding it and gripping the spray, but
Speaker 1: you forgot about you're gonna Yeah, I shoot this thing
Speaker 1: with the.
Speaker 3: B I just had the ring only, and so it
Speaker 3: was kind of like sticking up dagony up with the
Speaker 3: bottom of you know, facing up. So when she bit
Speaker 3: down and I heard the pop, I was like, that's
Speaker 3: your skull, dude, like she's she's got you. And then
Speaker 3: I felt the warm sensation go down my back.
Speaker 2: When you say heard the pop, what do you mean?
Speaker 3: So the can popped because it's pressurized. So when she
Speaker 3: bit down, it okay.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I got it, so, but did you know
Speaker 1: that it was the can? It took a second so
Speaker 1: I would originally thought it was part of you.
Speaker 3: That's what I thought. I thought it was my probably
Speaker 3: my skull.
Speaker 2: I was in.
Speaker 1: A vehicle roll over one time coming back from hunting
Speaker 1: and I just got a coffee at a gas station
Speaker 1: and we ended up hanging upside down the seat belts
Speaker 1: and I'm like and I thought, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's all my blood running out of my head. And
Speaker 1: I remember touching the back of my hair and looking
Speaker 1: at my hand.
Speaker 2: There was no blood there.
Speaker 1: It's not coming coffee, nothing wrong, nothing wrong whatsoever. For
Speaker 1: this one second, I'm like, oh, no, my life's blood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so pam pop yep. And I my initial
Speaker 3: thought was like, oh ship, she just popped you in
Speaker 3: the head, like your your skulls open and I felt
Speaker 3: warmth going down my back and my blood I thought
Speaker 3: was blood and uh then I heard her panting and
Speaker 3: running away and I was like, I was like, wait
Speaker 3: what And so I got.
Speaker 2: Up, like and what noise? What noise is she making
Speaker 2: just the same like okay, so not a different in
Speaker 2: pain noise.
Speaker 3: She just like I mean, I don't want to describe
Speaker 3: it as sneezing, but like it was just like she
Speaker 3: was very uncomfortable and couldn't breathe properly. I guess I
Speaker 3: don't know. And I heard her thumping running away and
Speaker 3: then that so I was like, you're alive, and I
Speaker 3: got up in the push up position. I saw her
Speaker 3: running up the hill that her cub ran.
Speaker 2: Up, and she went in the direction of her cob.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm ninety nine percent sure. It was very disoriented
Speaker 3: and regardless.
Speaker 2: But so.
Speaker 3: After she ran away, I got up and I ran
Speaker 3: the opposite direction.
Speaker 2: You were still able to run?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I ran, I want to say, almost half a mile.
Speaker 2: Now, how are you not full of spray?
Speaker 3: I am. I'll show you the picture after But.
Speaker 2: I mean, are you blinded?
Speaker 3: Nope, it didn't infect my eyes whatsoever. I don't know
Speaker 3: how or why, because.
Speaker 2: They've pulled that part of your brain out probably right,
Speaker 2: they also nick.
Speaker 6: Eyes.
Speaker 2: The backs already combines to make your super power. Yeah,
Speaker 2: while I was in there, I did you a favor.
Speaker 2: So was it in your nose and mouth?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll show you a good picture after hand.
Speaker 2: But when that can went, did it dribble or did
Speaker 2: it poof? Okay? Yep?
Speaker 3: And so when I got up and started running.
Speaker 2: Her teeth went through the can. Who's got the can?
Speaker 3: Now? National Park?
Speaker 2: Are you get in the back?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 3: They gave me the holster back because you DAP. Thank
Speaker 3: you, you DAP for saving my life. You DAP comes with
Speaker 3: a holster like a plastic holes.
Speaker 2: You need the can?
Speaker 3: I don't need it.
Speaker 2: Can we get it for our auction house of bodities?
Speaker 3: I mean, do you want to contact I have the can?
Speaker 2: Why would they be able to have your can?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Did they request to keep it?
Speaker 3: They did not, but it never crossed my mind.
Speaker 2: You got a can with a bear's teeth holes in it.
Speaker 6: And not just like a random one you found.
Speaker 2: They saved your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got lots of beare teeth holes because I
Speaker 1: always bite our polly pipe and our cav.
Speaker 2: I mean, no one cares about.
Speaker 1: That, but uh, you gotta get that can we put
Speaker 1: the auction House of Bodies, I.
Speaker 2: Mean or whatever you can? Or he could keep it.
Speaker 6: I don't know what.
Speaker 3: They can go to action and someone's interested.
Speaker 6: About your old staples.
Speaker 2: That they took your can?
Speaker 3: Yeah, uh so they took all my clothes.
Speaker 2: They actually take your can?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 11: Gets off the damn mountain I've been holding my bread
Speaker 11: here and a half to three minutes.
Speaker 2: So she runs, She runs, iron pepper sprayed. Yep.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there any with all the pain from
Speaker 1: the biting? Are you registering like an intense stinging?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: What do you? What are you registering? Are you like?
Speaker 1: Are you are you thinking? I'm so injured I'm gonna die.
Speaker 1: I can't believe how uninjured I am.
Speaker 3: I looked at my hand and I was like, if
Speaker 3: my hand looks like that, then I don't want to
Speaker 3: know what the rest of me looks like.
Speaker 8: So you're probably just going on adrenaline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you knew what way to run?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Why stopped the direction of the bears the best?
Speaker 2: So didn't you didn't go toward the truck? No, the van? No,
Speaker 2: I just were getting out of there.
Speaker 3: I was just getting too safely clearing because I knew
Speaker 3: I was I knew I was bleeding pretty bad. The
Speaker 3: back of my pants were completely red. I didn't get
Speaker 3: any good pictures. I'll share the video, which I took
Speaker 3: just in case I did die. I'm happy to share
Speaker 3: that offline, but that's something that I think is a
Speaker 3: little too intimate share the public. There's you get a
Speaker 3: little glimpse of my my butt and not physically but
Speaker 3: like the blood amount of blood on my backside. When
Speaker 3: I started running, there was this big pilos like there's
Speaker 3: some leftover snow from the winter. And as I'm running
Speaker 3: through that, I see the grizzly tracks in there. So
Speaker 3: that is what fuels my high po athesis that they
Speaker 3: were walking towards me at the time.
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 3: So I run up to started running up the top
Speaker 3: of this hill. I have it all saved on on
Speaker 3: X so we can like I don't remember how much
Speaker 3: elevation I gained, but it was almost half a mile,
Speaker 3: I believe.
Speaker 2: Looking back on it. Now, were you going? Were you?
Speaker 1: I know you're going away from the bear? Are you
Speaker 1: also going away from the vehicle?
Speaker 3: Yes? Okay, yeah, I ended up almost a full mile
Speaker 3: from the parking lot.
Speaker 1: So you put that and then as you're running, at
Speaker 1: what point did you did did you feel like you
Speaker 1: got back to your normal self or is it not
Speaker 1: hitting yet? Like were your normal, rational, logical self.
Speaker 3: So that happened maybe after being on the phone with
Speaker 3: Chloe for five seconds. So once I started running up
Speaker 3: the hill, I just remember like I still had all
Speaker 3: my I didn't have a lot of gear at me.
Speaker 3: I just had an extra lens, my camera, a fanny pack,
Speaker 3: and then my my binoharnes. My camera weighs about seven
Speaker 3: or eight pounds. That thing was just dangling between my legs,
Speaker 3: hitting me, bouncing off everything. I had to climb over
Speaker 3: a bunch of down trees, basically hurtling over the trees.
Speaker 3: And I had checked my phone and realized that all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, I have three g and I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: I'm at service in three days since being out here. Basically,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call my wife and tell her I love
Speaker 3: her and that you know what. I called her to
Speaker 3: tell her what happened and that I love you, because
Speaker 3: I don't know what's going to happen. So I text her, Well,
Speaker 3: I called her. It didn't go through for some reason.
Speaker 3: Then I text her just one word attacked, and then
Speaker 3: she called me right back as soon as I sent
Speaker 3: that text, and so I picked up attacked.
Speaker 4: Yep, the text didn't go through.
Speaker 5: I just saw this initial phone call and was like,
Speaker 5: that's weird that he's calling me.
Speaker 4: And I called him back.
Speaker 3: So I tell her, I'm like hey, I'm like hey, Chloe,
Speaker 3: it happened. I was like, I got attacked by grizzly
Speaker 3: and she didn't even this is the emt in her,
Speaker 3: but like didn't even register any empathy or any form
Speaker 3: of like the only thing she cared about was preserving
Speaker 3: my life. And you know, being in the military, I've
Speaker 3: taken half a dozen what we call combat life saving
Speaker 3: classes and in my career and it's always, no matter what,
Speaker 3: the number one thing is stop the bleed. That's the
Speaker 3: most important thing. Well, obviously making your situation situations safe first,
Speaker 3: but secondaries stop the bleed. If you're conscious, you always
Speaker 3: work on yourself. So she reminded me, you know, she's like,
Speaker 3: where's your first aid kit. I was like, it's in
Speaker 3: a fucking band And I'm like screaming at her, and
Speaker 3: she's like, all right, just stay calm, Like turnikeuts need
Speaker 3: to improvise. What do you have on you? As like
Speaker 3: I have my backpack, my fanny pack and camera straps
Speaker 3: and she's like okay. Like I was like, She's like,
Speaker 3: start improvising, and I'm like, I need to be safe first.
Speaker 3: I need to get somewhere where I can be safe.
Speaker 3: And so I ran up to the summit of this
Speaker 3: little hill, and then I started assessing, all right, where
Speaker 3: am I bleeding from? And that's when I looked at
Speaker 3: my really looked at my hand. I noticed my underneath
Speaker 3: my watch strap. She bit through my watch strap, and
Speaker 3: I like looked. I lifted my arm up and I
Speaker 3: could see daylight through my strap. So I was like, well,
Speaker 3: that's fucked. I'm just gonna leave that there. And then
Speaker 3: I just like looked behind me. I saw that I
Speaker 3: was bleeding obviously on my backside. I put my hand
Speaker 3: there and it just felt like a steady like drizzle
Speaker 3: of blood and it was extremely warm. I noticed that
Speaker 3: the coloration wasn't It was just like a deep red.
Speaker 3: So I was like, okay, that's not arterial. So I
Speaker 3: think I have more time than I thought. So I
Speaker 3: just laid down, started taking some stuff off, and then
Speaker 3: I started applying the tourniquits. Put too on my right
Speaker 3: left leg, one high and then one lower.
Speaker 6: So you're in triage mode. You're trying to figure out
Speaker 6: what the priority is. Right.
Speaker 3: I felt generally safe, but always was concerned of a
Speaker 3: secondary attack. That's you know what happened to todd Or
Speaker 3: So that was always playing in the back of my mind.
Speaker 3: I apply a second.
Speaker 6: But again, it doesn't matter if you bleed out.
Speaker 3: Right right right at that point I'm talking, I think
Speaker 3: Chloe called me back. She's she's with the ranger. At
Speaker 3: this point, they're asking me where I am trying to
Speaker 3: like send them my great coordinates. Nothing was like accurate
Speaker 3: for some reason. I sent them coordinates from Google that
Speaker 3: sent them like, I don't know how many yards off
Speaker 3: I'm blowing. I have my my rescue whistle at me.
Speaker 3: I'm blowing into that.
Speaker 6: But forty mile an hour wind still right right.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So eventually, uh, nine one one like she was,
Speaker 3: I don't know, she was with the range of rangers.
Speaker 3: Like he needs to call nine to one one and
Speaker 3: get on the phone with the operator so they can
Speaker 3: communicate with the helicopter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because at that point they had the helicopter in
Speaker 5: the air looking for you, and they wanted to try
Speaker 5: like pinging his phone to off the tower to see.
Speaker 2: You know, how much time is gone by at this point.
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell you at this point, but total from
Speaker 3: when I called her to when I was airlifted was
Speaker 3: a little less than two hours, which is very fast
Speaker 3: all things considered the problem was like in my own head,
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, well I got attacked. I was
Speaker 3: relatively close to the road. I thought I was like
Speaker 3: three hundred yards off the road. Turns out when I
Speaker 3: ran away and now it's a direction, I was like
Speaker 3: nine hundred yards off the road. So they were through
Speaker 3: these technical tech technologily sorry, through these these errors, through
Speaker 3: the systems like my GPS and all that stuff. They
Speaker 3: were having trouble finding me. When I was on the phone.
Speaker 3: The operator basically he's like, all right, can you see
Speaker 3: the helicopter. I was like, yes, I can see the helicopter.
Speaker 3: I was like telling them to stop and go to
Speaker 3: their three o'clock and fly straight, and they're gonna fly
Speaker 3: right over me. And that's what they did. They flew
Speaker 3: right over me. Couldn't see me still, but I was
Speaker 3: obviously on the phone, and I was like, all right,
Speaker 3: they just literally just flew over me. Tell them to
Speaker 3: stop again, and they did it again. I told them,
Speaker 3: you know, they're flying low, yeah, like fifty feet over
Speaker 3: maybe sixty feet over the trees.
Speaker 2: And they flew right over you. Didn't see you?
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's what I was gonna is it? Are you
Speaker 9: still in like pretty timbered snow yep.
Speaker 3: So they flew over to like a clearing and I
Speaker 3: told them to stop and I started waving to them,
Speaker 3: and that's when they.
Speaker 2: You're probably wearing earth tones.
Speaker 3: I am, Unfortunately, if I had, if I was wearing
Speaker 3: my normal pack, I have a orange like signal sheet
Speaker 3: and I have my i fac first aid kit that
Speaker 3: had trauma stuff in it. Like we said, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Swear everybody I'm prepared.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just normally normally I am.
Speaker 4: How much stuff we bring with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So at this point though, right like you're on the ground,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of opportunity for panic. Yeah, like somebody
Speaker 6: doesn't see you right away. You built that up as
Speaker 6: like okay, there I'm getting saved or just talking with
Speaker 6: Chloe and stuff, and like you have to have some
Speaker 6: moments of this isn't gonna work out.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. I mean when I saw the helicopter, that
Speaker 3: was my first real real relief. But yeah, like I
Speaker 3: would say, at the beginning, I think I think I
Speaker 3: had the TURNI kits on already, or maybe I didn't
Speaker 3: have the turnic kits on, But I made that video
Speaker 3: because I was like, I'm bleeding out like, I don't
Speaker 3: know if I'm gonna make it. I just want my
Speaker 3: family to know like I love them, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And so what is your confidence in your your
Speaker 6: self care so far? Like at this point on the hill,
Speaker 6: are you like I've done everything I can do?
Speaker 3: Yeah? There was a point where I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I realized the blood flow is slowing in every spot
Speaker 3: but my back. I had moved once post tourniquet application,
Speaker 3: and there was a lot like so I moved once,
Speaker 3: sat down in a different spot, and then after a
Speaker 3: few minutes I had moved again and I noticed there's
Speaker 3: a lot less blood under me, So that was good.
Speaker 3: So basically at that point I had a.
Speaker 6: And are you thinking about shock though too?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That was that was literally where my brain was kind
Speaker 3: of going in that shock in hypothermia is a real concern. Basically,
Speaker 3: the the operator was like, do you have anything to wear?
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, I took my hoodie off
Speaker 3: to absorb some blood. I can put it back on.
Speaker 3: He's like put it back on. I'm like okay. She
Speaker 3: told me to put my elevate my feet so that
Speaker 3: I wanted to pass out because I was never like
Speaker 3: I don't want to say I was ever close to
Speaker 3: fainting and passing out, but there are points in time
Speaker 3: where things did get a little hazy. Yeah, And I
Speaker 3: guess at a certain point, you know, being up there
Speaker 3: for an hour and a half ish, I was feeling like, okay,
Speaker 3: like this has taken to me, it's a really long time.
Speaker 3: Like in retrospect it's not, but to me up there,
Speaker 3: it felt like a lifetime. And I'm just like, O, way, what.
Speaker 6: Are you feeling like because you can't talk to him
Speaker 6: now he's on the phone nine to one one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's it was such a
Speaker 5: surreal experience. Like I the first phone call that I
Speaker 5: made to family was to his cousin and she was like,
Speaker 5: how are you feeling? And I was like, honestly, my
Speaker 5: feeling went offline as soon as my husband said, like,
Speaker 5: I've been attacked by a bear, like it.
Speaker 4: Just I don't know.
Speaker 5: I'm I feel like, because of my work as an EMT,
Speaker 5: I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing.
Speaker 8: So were you like looking for him, like with the.
Speaker 4: So that was the worst part.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So initially.
Speaker 5: After I called nine one one, I had grabbed my
Speaker 5: bag and my first aid kit, and I was kinda
Speaker 5: in my bear spray and I was kind of like
Speaker 5: pacing in the lot, and I was waiting for the
Speaker 5: first ranger to show up, and I didn't know what
Speaker 5: kind of response we were going to get. So the
Speaker 5: first ranger shows up and and I'm trying my best
Speaker 5: to give him an idea of where Shane might be
Speaker 5: based on like, oh, well, this is where I saw
Speaker 5: him last, but you know, who's to say where he
Speaker 5: is now? But he did send me these coordinates and
Speaker 5: it was funny because the ranger, you know, doing his job,
Speaker 5: doing a great job, was just like great, and he
Speaker 5: just hot back in his truck and drove off, and
Speaker 5: I'm just standing there in the parking lot like what
Speaker 5: and so I yell after him. I'm like to drive
Speaker 5: up Signal Mountain Road to look for Shane, And so
Speaker 5: I yell after him. I'm an EMT, I can help,
Speaker 5: and he goes cool, I'm a paramedic and I'm.
Speaker 6: Like, so you got compartment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which you know, like I don't know.
Speaker 5: I was talking to some friends after it and they're like, hey,
Speaker 5: you know, when we've been involved with SAR stuff, people
Speaker 5: have just said that they have certain credentials and they
Speaker 5: don't and they end up getting in the way and
Speaker 5: like my whole thing. You know, with training as an EMT, uh,
Speaker 5: you will fail your practicals as an EMT if you
Speaker 5: forget to ask like, oh, is the scene safe? And
Speaker 5: so while one hundred percent I wanted to run into
Speaker 5: the woods and find him, I knew like, well, if
Speaker 5: I run into the bear first, I might be drawing
Speaker 5: away resources that he needs way more than I do,
Speaker 5: or get myself.
Speaker 4: Killed, break your leg right, Yeah, yeah, So it was.
Speaker 5: It was really hard being in the parking lot, just
Speaker 5: waiting and feeling just like feeling like I had this
Speaker 5: skill set that could be potentially useful and just doing nothing.
Speaker 6: There's nothing worse than being like, listen, I I'm somebody
Speaker 6: with skills and I can be helpful. And then if
Speaker 6: you do something stupid, then you're like, I, but I'm
Speaker 6: still really good, you guys, I just did this one
Speaker 6: stupid thing by which I'll be judged forever.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 5: Oh man, I just feel like it's like put this
Speaker 5: whole spin on, like the survivor's skill that I feel
Speaker 5: for like we were on the same walk. I turned around,
Speaker 5: I went back to the car and then I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: well I could have maybe done something and yeah, just
Speaker 5: sitting there.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, so the helo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So at that like and while I'm up there
Speaker 3: on that hill alone, like a lot of things are
Speaker 3: going through my head and like is the bear going
Speaker 3: to come back? Should I climb a tree? Like what's
Speaker 3: my best scenario? I just basically the only defense I
Speaker 3: had was my knife, so I had that out and
Speaker 3: I was just like at this point, like if I'm
Speaker 3: she comes back, I'm probably dead, so I might as
Speaker 3: well fight you. So the wound, like I started, the
Speaker 3: pain started to creep in. At this point, my shoulder
Speaker 3: was rocked. And so when the helo shows up, I
Speaker 3: felt the first like real relief. Looking at the helicopter,
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, cool. So I actually started to crawl
Speaker 3: towards it, and I got maybe five or eight feet
Speaker 3: away from where I was sitting, and then I heard
Speaker 3: Shane Shane Burke, and I was like, and I see
Speaker 3: a ranger of the twelve gage and I was like, thank.
Speaker 2: God he coming on foot. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had about I would say about by the
Speaker 3: time by the time the helicopters ready to take me out.
Speaker 3: There's at least eight or twelve rangers into the set
Speaker 3: up a perimeter.
Speaker 8: How far had you come from the attack site?
Speaker 3: I want to say half a mile ish, But like
Speaker 3: I said, we can look at on X. The rangers
Speaker 3: would have a better idea because they did a full
Speaker 3: investigation from where they picked me up down to where
Speaker 3: the and there's a huge, massive blood trail that they followed.
Speaker 3: So the first ranger shows up and he's like, you're
Speaker 3: Shane Burke and I was like, yep, I'm looking for
Speaker 3: a different Yeah, so I you know, and they have
Speaker 3: to ask that, and he starts, you know, he starts,
Speaker 3: he's like, all right, I'm so and so here to help.
Speaker 3: And then a female officer shows up. She was rad
Speaker 3: I don't remember her name, and they just start cutting
Speaker 3: my stuff off, and uh, you know that, as I
Speaker 3: mentioned in my post, was you know my ultimately, you know,
Speaker 3: I believe in conservation. I believe that I was in
Speaker 3: the you know, there's this wrong place, wrong time, that
Speaker 3: Bair didn't do anything that it like wasn't natural to it.
Speaker 3: So I was like, hey, like, you're not going to
Speaker 3: kill that bear, are you. And he's like, well, we're
Speaker 3: going we have to look into it. And I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I I hope you don't, and he's like, I was
Speaker 3: really admirable. Yeah yeah, so yeah, they just start you know,
Speaker 3: assessing me. They do their own blood sweeps at this point,
Speaker 3: they're you know, doing their thing to get an ivy started,
Speaker 3: and they're all down in my area and.
Speaker 1: Are they trying to are they are they doing anything
Speaker 1: to try to get the DNA off the bear?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: They did, so they know if there's a record of
Speaker 3: the bear, they know what bear?
Speaker 2: What do they what did they swo? What were they
Speaker 2: swabbing to try to get a clothing and the bite
Speaker 2: they're swabbing in somebody and put it in a tube?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean so they completely took all my
Speaker 3: stuff off that hill. I didn't have my phone for
Speaker 3: two days after the.
Speaker 2: They have all kinds of ways to find those.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we got like everything back in an evidence box
Speaker 5: and I opened it up in the motel room.
Speaker 3: Like not the spray everywhere out.
Speaker 4: The bear spray?
Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah, it suck.
Speaker 5: We're just like coughing and hacking camp.
Speaker 4: I forgot.
Speaker 3: I did ask him about the can and like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: we have it and it never occurred to me, if
Speaker 3: I holding that can, I don't know, maybe there's DNA
Speaker 3: on it. I don't know, it's probably it could be
Speaker 3: in a visitors center. I'll text the biologists and see
Speaker 3: if I can pay for it to ship to you
Speaker 3: guys or something. But so at this point, like you know,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm sitting there like and I'm in their words
Speaker 3: he said, I was a really good patient. I was,
Speaker 3: you know, obviously there's in a lot of pain. At
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 2: Is the helicopter landed or just hovering?
Speaker 3: It left and landed and for a minute for how
Speaker 3: far away? I have no idea.
Speaker 5: I imagine gravel pit parking lot down the road where
Speaker 5: they were.
Speaker 2: There was no good place right there to land.
Speaker 5: Now, okay, actually they dropped to Yeah, they dropped to
Speaker 5: search and rescue people from the Jenny Lake Rangers down.
Speaker 3: Actually one might have walked Dan, I'm not sure. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so they're working on me. They're just stuffing me with gaze.
Speaker 3: And it was like every every second they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: here's another hole, here's another hole, let's stuff it with
Speaker 3: five feet of gaze. It was sucked.
Speaker 2: Was that painful?
Speaker 3: Very painful?
Speaker 2: And they just got you stripped down?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, button naked. They're putting like the uh, the
Speaker 3: emergency blankets on me and stuff like that. They put
Speaker 3: heater packs on my chest underneath in between my armpits,
Speaker 3: and then my concern at that point it was like, hey,
Speaker 3: did I ship my pants? And they're like they just
Speaker 3: like lift my leg up and they're like, no, you're good, dude.
Speaker 3: I was like, sick, you're just.
Speaker 6: Crawling gain to everybody.
Speaker 2: They say that to everybody.
Speaker 3: There's multiple times that conversation throughout. So, yeah, they they
Speaker 3: plugged me up and they're ready to short haul me out, Hony.
Speaker 3: Just like it wasn't a stretcher or a rescue basket.
Speaker 3: I forget what they called.
Speaker 4: It, but it was like a Stokes basket.
Speaker 3: No, it wasn't a bad It was like a I
Speaker 3: felt like I was in a bridle wrap. It was
Speaker 3: just basically there, instead of flying me to the hospital,
Speaker 3: they're going to lift me up from the site, bring
Speaker 3: me to a safe location where there's an ambulance waiting.
Speaker 4: And dangling from the helicopter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so does that when they come down with that
Speaker 1: bridle wrapper, do they drop it and then you hook
Speaker 1: up and then they come down and hook up or
Speaker 1: is it stayed hooked to.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, helicopter, they dropped it and then it didn't
Speaker 3: stay hooked up.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they say get them ready yep. And then
Speaker 1: they lower down a hook and someone on the ground
Speaker 1: hooks that correct and they lived out yep.
Speaker 3: And So I think her name was Livy No Lexi, Lexi,
Speaker 3: sorry Alexi. So she she tethered in with me, She
Speaker 3: flew with me. She was great. I think she was
Speaker 3: on a newer side because when they were talking about
Speaker 3: who would would fly with me, she was like, oh.
Speaker 6: I've never been.
Speaker 1: So she clipped into the same hook your clip into,
Speaker 1: but on some kind of climbing harness or something.
Speaker 3: She had to rescue harness and some diesel equipment that
Speaker 3: she was connected tethered with. So we land. There was
Speaker 3: a lot of people on scene, some rubberneckers. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then I had met I. So they load me up
Speaker 3: into ambulance and then they start, you know, checking me
Speaker 3: out there. One of the rangers that the investigating ranger,
Speaker 3: came into the ambulance. He introduced himself. He had some
Speaker 3: questions for me, what where's the can?
Speaker 2: Yeah, where's the can?
Speaker 3: So you say, yeah, he just wanted to know some
Speaker 3: of the finer details, like just some quick details so
Speaker 3: they could have an idea of what happened vaguely before
Speaker 3: they go out And because they didn't go out to
Speaker 3: the locate attack location till the next day, I think
Speaker 3: they secured it overnight, but they didn't like go out
Speaker 3: there to do the overall investigation until the next day.
Speaker 3: So he had some questions like, you know, are you
Speaker 3: sure it was a grizzly Like I got asked that
Speaker 3: like fifty times, so I'm like, no, black bear. I
Speaker 3: know it wasn't a black bear, Like, it was definitely grizzly.
Speaker 3: He's like, well, what are some identifying features and like
Speaker 3: big brown bear, big homp on her back, Like I
Speaker 3: don't know, like.
Speaker 2: Great big claws.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they did this to me versus running away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you know, my Carrey team is great.
Speaker 3: They finally hit me with some pain killers which just
Speaker 3: took the edge off.
Speaker 2: No chlora. Are you there at the ambulance.
Speaker 5: Just briefly, which is funny because I got in and
Speaker 5: Shane's like, don't cry and just get out of the
Speaker 5: get out of the ambulance so I can go and
Speaker 5: then they repacked all his wounds.
Speaker 4: So he was there for like another hour and.
Speaker 6: You couldn't ride.
Speaker 2: You couldn't ride in the back with him.
Speaker 4: No, I had the dog, you know.
Speaker 8: So are they taken you to Jackson to or too
Speaker 8: apart to Jackson?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And at this point had they begun trying to
Speaker 1: flush all that bear juice out of there.
Speaker 3: So I did mention it because I was like, guys,
Speaker 3: my hands are really freaking hot right now. I was
Speaker 3: sweating really bad because they had scary of hypothermia. They
Speaker 3: had the heat cranked up to a thousand degrees in then,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, I was like, hey, like, I have
Speaker 3: a lot of bear spread in the back of my head.
Speaker 3: It's it's really starting to make me uncomfortable. So they
Speaker 3: tried to clean it up the best they could. All
Speaker 3: my wounds that were packed had absorbed the all of
Speaker 3: the gods had absorbed too much blood. So they had
Speaker 3: to actually repack everything there. So we we we sat
Speaker 3: there for I would say almost an hour. Yeah. Wow,
Speaker 3: they repacked everything and then we drove. We get to
Speaker 3: the trauma bay and it was just like they I
Speaker 3: went through the front door and it was just all
Speaker 3: of a sudden. There's friends, I mean really fast, a
Speaker 3: lot of people working on me, touching me, putting another
Speaker 3: IV in, just assessing everything. The surgeon came in told
Speaker 3: me his plan. Chloe shows. They let Chloe stay in
Speaker 3: there the whole time before the surgery, basically just make
Speaker 3: it sure I didn't have anything to eat within a
Speaker 3: certain timeframe. And yeah, they just kind of started to
Speaker 3: go over what just assassin, like right up my report
Speaker 3: on like where all my wounds were so they could
Speaker 3: go into surgery prepared. The surgeon was like, hey, man,
Speaker 3: we're stapling everything. It's like, if we do sutures, we'll
Speaker 3: be here till the morning. And I was like, yeah, dude,
Speaker 3: just do what you gotta do. I don't care. So
Speaker 3: I had a total of sixty staples, nine sites that
Speaker 3: needed stapling, and they just did like a deep clean
Speaker 3: of all the wounds. Secondary or infections of obviously a
Speaker 3: big concern for grizzly bears or any animal bite for
Speaker 3: that matter, but grizzly bears are notoriously dirty. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I got to call my best friend on the phone
Speaker 3: and tell him what happened. He was expecting like a
Speaker 3: moon report and there's the Honeymoon of Horror. So I
Speaker 3: forget what news station called.
Speaker 4: I think that was Inside Edition.
Speaker 3: It was so funny and I knew we started laughing.
Speaker 3: That was the first time I started laughing about the situation.
Speaker 3: Like I knew, I was okay, I'm not like I've
Speaker 3: had so much shit happened to me in the last
Speaker 3: four years that I'm just like, if I just sit
Speaker 3: here and be mad about it or sad about it,
Speaker 3: it's not going to do me any good. So I
Speaker 3: just we had a laugh. My buddy Murphy was just like, dude, like,
Speaker 3: stay out of the woods, dude, and I was like,
Speaker 3: absolutely not, Like that's where I feel most alive, and
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm still going to do a lot
Speaker 3: of people are like, oh, I bet you won't go
Speaker 3: back to Wyoming. I'm like, we might move there. That's
Speaker 3: not true.
Speaker 5: Our friends have been amazing at like keeping our spirits up,
Speaker 5: like like teasing him and being like, you know, there's
Speaker 5: easier ways to get attention rather than getting like hoisted
Speaker 5: out by helicopter.
Speaker 1: Do you feel, uh, do you feel you'd be any
Speaker 1: more jumpy? What do you mean being in bear country?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Do you think it'll do you picture laying off on real,
Speaker 2: real grizzly hotspots.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, I don't think we'll be
Speaker 3: back for at least two years anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just say I mean, outside of that, let's
Speaker 1: just say ILL said to you, man, let's go check
Speaker 1: out the spot where's always a lot of grizzlies hanging around.
Speaker 3: Depends am I gonna be like in a vehicle or
Speaker 3: am I gonna it's on the ground walking I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and groups of three bring spray. Yeah, I think i'd go. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean still pretty fresh. It's still really fresh. You
Speaker 3: know it's only been three weeks, right, I mean we
Speaker 3: I listened to the Otter podcast and like those women
Speaker 3: came on after nine months, so they had a lot
Speaker 3: of time to process what happened and talk about it.
Speaker 3: It's very real to be here right now, Like it's
Speaker 3: you know, people are like, you're already back out less,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, I had a pretty cool opportunity.
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to pass it up. Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you feel like, yeah, no, I see what you're saying,
Speaker 1: like the freshness of it, but you feel like down
Speaker 1: you're comfortable with the idea that down the road you'd
Speaker 1: spend time in Bear country.
Speaker 3: I think so I've struggled with the idea of camping
Speaker 3: in bear country. I think I would do what you
Speaker 3: do and bring electric fence. No, I don't have one time,
Speaker 3: just one time, okay, just because it was a Kodiak Island, well.
Speaker 2: A fog neg which is such the same thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, I remember that they're separated, they're separated by a
Speaker 1: narrow straight But yeah, that's the only time I've used this.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm not down on it. It's just the time.
Speaker 6: Good good buddy of mine drew an awesome tag in
Speaker 6: Wyoming for ELK this year, and and like super Dance
Speaker 6: Grizz Country and he's bringing an electric fence there despite
Speaker 6: having an untold amount of hours and super down to
Speaker 6: Grizz Country in Montana and never bring an electric fence.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So it's like, you know, there's no one way, yeah,
Speaker 6: and and you don't just because you've done it one
Speaker 6: way forever, It doesn't mean you can change. You don't
Speaker 6: have to change.
Speaker 1: What it would afford you is is at least you'd
Speaker 1: be able to sleep at night.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, Yeah, all days, you know, you're still doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing, but at night, if it's anything that
Speaker 1: helps you get a little.
Speaker 8: Bit of Yeah, did they I want to get back
Speaker 8: to the bear. Did they identify it?
Speaker 2: Did they know it?
Speaker 3: They They never came out with publicly whether or not
Speaker 3: they knew what bear it was, but I'm sure they do. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they keep pretty good. Yeah, I've talked to some people.
Speaker 2: It could be a bear. They haven't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it could be. It totally could be. I know
Speaker 3: bear three nine nine is a hot topic of the situation.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and the photographer's bear.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's very the most habituated bear ever.
Speaker 3: Right, but she's actually two people, so I mean it's
Speaker 3: not far fetched. She does have a single cub right now.
Speaker 3: We were told she was not in the location at
Speaker 3: the time, and.
Speaker 2: She's gotten.
Speaker 4: And then we were also told that like she was
Speaker 4: like six miles away.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've been We've been told about very far.
Speaker 3: But even if it was her, I don't care. Like
Speaker 3: it was a bear, I'm I mean as far as
Speaker 3: it was acting naturally, so it doesn't really matter. And
Speaker 3: to me, it's not like this bear seeked me out
Speaker 3: and was like I'm gonna kill you. Motherfucker for being
Speaker 3: in my area, like she had a very real reason
Speaker 3: to not want me to be alive.
Speaker 6: So well, yeah, just like you said, you're in a
Speaker 6: place with a lot of human traffic, right, and you
Speaker 6: peeled off away from all that that traffic into what
Speaker 6: sounds like a nasty blowdown area unbeknownst to you, right,
Speaker 6: but it seems like a pretty secluded spot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you already got scratched anyway. So what's the
Speaker 2: difference that old bear? Now was there?
Speaker 8: Do you know if there was elk around in their calving.
Speaker 3: Where I did find elk droppings, but I did not
Speaker 3: see any elk, so yeah, hm hmm, Yeah, so that's
Speaker 3: kind of the bulk of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean a lot of people don't know that
Speaker 6: those army cadences that you guys sing so have a
Speaker 6: lot like a bawling calf elk to Brodie's.
Speaker 3: Point, really, yeah, come get me bear.
Speaker 2: In the future, would you stick with spray pepper spray?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? I mean, like I said earlier.
Speaker 2: You've had a lot of training with pistols.
Speaker 3: Uh, not not necessary pistols.
Speaker 2: Pistols military. They don't teach you a lot about shooting pistols.
Speaker 3: No, I mean so we you get familiarized with it.
Speaker 3: But pistols are mostly reserved for infantry, military, police, special
Speaker 3: forces officers, So your commanding officer will be assigned a pistol,
Speaker 3: not a rifle. I'm as being like mostly operating vehicles.
Speaker 3: I'm just assigned a rifle or a machine gun, like
Speaker 3: it depends. Usually we don't give mechanics machine guns because
Speaker 3: they gotta They're the ones getting down dropping drive chafts
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, So be silly to give them
Speaker 3: a machine gun when that's your most casualty producing weapon
Speaker 3: of the squad. So it doesn't make sense. Explain that
Speaker 3: to me, most casualty producing weapon, So that's the weapon
Speaker 3: that's going to lay down the most lead.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought it meant the highest probability of getting that.
Speaker 3: No, sorry, that that would make sense. Yeah, sorry, Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't want Yeah, you're supposed to be doing
Speaker 1: your job, not that job, right, gotcha?
Speaker 8: Yeah, but you said a handgun would have done you
Speaker 8: note probably.
Speaker 3: In my specific situation. Absolutely, Like maybe if I went
Speaker 3: for the gun first shot and that scared it, but
Speaker 3: me getting an accurate shot on it that wasn't I
Speaker 3: would just piss the bear off even more like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you couldn't even hit the I mean, think
Speaker 1: about the spray, you don't need to aim at that.
Speaker 3: Great, I'm not. I'm like, I think three seconds is generous,
Speaker 3: Like how fast it happened.
Speaker 1: If you didn't hit that, If you didn't have time
Speaker 1: to hit that button on that spray and you knew
Speaker 1: to go for it, you have time to ain't a
Speaker 1: gun now.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm like. That's why I try to
Speaker 3: tell people in the comments, like if I see a
Speaker 3: comment worth like commenting that I know I've dodd.
Speaker 1: Everyone, everyone in the everyone in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming.
Speaker 2: Is by birth a bear expert.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I will tell you I got this would be
Speaker 6: like a checking you out charge, not a charge that.
Speaker 3: Was on this show right, well, no, not that one, but.
Speaker 6: With you that was me on the BC one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then there was. But he had a he
Speaker 2: had a run in long ago too, But.
Speaker 6: I was I was actually working on grizzly Bear DNA
Speaker 6: project but super early in the morning, had two dogs
Speaker 6: with me coming across the base of this hill. Look
Speaker 6: up on the hillside. Giant grizzly Bear, biggest, biggest grizz
Speaker 6: I've personally seen Montana and it instantaneously turned and it
Speaker 6: was probably two hundred yards away and dropped down like
Speaker 6: full charge and hit the brakes at probably like fifty
Speaker 6: yards and this was like a pretty good amount of
Speaker 6: distance for the entire time man, and it just hauled ass, right.
Speaker 6: And I've thought about that a lot, and I was like,
Speaker 6: the only way I would have shot that bear is
Speaker 6: if I would have left my camp that morning with
Speaker 6: the the idea that I am going to kill a
Speaker 6: bear today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so be ready.
Speaker 2: But it's.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, you're just having the mindset of, like I am,
Speaker 6: I'm going to kill a bear today, so just be ready.
Speaker 6: I'm going to kill a bear, yeah, right, which is
Speaker 6: just not the situation.
Speaker 3: I mean, they can run thirty five miles an hour
Speaker 3: thirty yards it takes second and a half. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 3: it's just they're fast. So yeah, I mean that ship.
Speaker 3: Your pants are not your pants.
Speaker 2: You didn't.
Speaker 6: I did not.
Speaker 3: I'm very very proud of that. That was one of
Speaker 3: the first things my buddy Murphy asked me. He's like,
Speaker 3: so you shut your pants And I was like no,
Speaker 3: He's like, no, you must not be that bad then,
Speaker 3: But I.
Speaker 6: Also think, man, if you've got time to ship your
Speaker 6: pants or piss yourself, it's not really happened.
Speaker 3: No, I was pretty dehydrated anyway.
Speaker 2: But so you've got to you've got a surgery coming
Speaker 2: up there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so my uh after I was getting discharged,
Speaker 3: so I was only in the hospital for one.
Speaker 6: Night, and which is amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of crazy. It was kind of a
Speaker 3: mine fuck for us. We were but they're basically like,
Speaker 3: you're not getting any more antibiotics only oral. You can
Speaker 3: stay here, but it's gonna cost like five grand a night.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah's a hotel because we had to stay
Speaker 3: in the area because the rangers had all my stuff,
Speaker 3: my cell phone, my camera, all my like backpack stuff.
Speaker 3: The can, Yeah they have the can. Still can in.
Speaker 6: This situation, does uh do you get any sort of
Speaker 6: like military medical assistance?
Speaker 3: So yeah, is definitely gonna be a big help.
Speaker 2: So you still get VA covered if you get her outside.
Speaker 3: Because I'm a disabled veteran, so I have a high
Speaker 3: enough percentage to get free health care. So the only
Speaker 3: thing like, yeah, like they're going to cover everything, the ambulance,
Speaker 3: the hospital, surgery, uh PT will cover everything.
Speaker 8: You're covering that can into that.
Speaker 3: I'll text justin. I'll text you.
Speaker 9: Earlier you said she had broken your shoulder, so they
Speaker 9: just kind of left.
Speaker 8: It as is.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So when I was getting discharged, the nurses were
Speaker 3: kind of putting band aids on me and stuff, and
Speaker 3: they're like, just like Chloe helped them, so she had
Speaker 3: an idea because bless her soul, she's the one that
Speaker 3: has been And then now I have you know, I
Speaker 3: can move my arm a lot, but you know the
Speaker 3: first week I couldn't even button my pants, like sitting
Speaker 3: down to take a ship, like the toilet seats right
Speaker 3: on one of my wounds, so uncomfortable to do anything.
Speaker 6: So did did you to drive all the way home too?
Speaker 11: Oh man?
Speaker 3: We had to finish out the honeymoon.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: If we didn't, we're just gonna be when everything.
Speaker 3: Oh man, the window the wind show got cracked by
Speaker 3: a rock from a car. So that's been a fiasco
Speaker 3: to deal with.
Speaker 2: You just can't win, no dude.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 3: So they were dressing my wounds for me to be discharged,
Speaker 3: and they were like.
Speaker 4: They just noticed like this deformity and older like little knob.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they knew my shoulder was messed up. Like I
Speaker 3: told him, I was in a lot of pain there,
Speaker 3: and so the.
Speaker 4: Lys was like, does that always look like that?
Speaker 3: And I'm like no, I like looked at her.
Speaker 2: Like what I can see it right now? Yeah? What yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah knob there, Yeah at that bone. Was that like
Speaker 2: that before?
Speaker 3: So they she was like, oh, this looks like.
Speaker 2: A protrudnob shoulder.
Speaker 3: They thought it was just a dislocation. They're like, that
Speaker 3: should reset. Let me talk to ortho and see if
Speaker 3: I'll come in and look at it. And he's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it looks like a c separation. Just follow up with
Speaker 3: your ortho back home.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, God, shouldn't they give you like X
Speaker 8: rays and stuff.
Speaker 6: I'd be like, yeah, we're already here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of crazy for it, That's that's kind
Speaker 3: of crazy.
Speaker 2: Try your shoulder.
Speaker 5: No, I guess I feel my sense is that emergency
Speaker 5: medicine is trying to like move away from just like
Speaker 5: nuking everyone with radiation like CT scans right off the
Speaker 5: back at. One of my friends has had like so
Speaker 5: many emergency room visits in the last year that she's
Speaker 5: like surprised that she's not glowing in the dark from
Speaker 5: all the radiation, so like I could appreciate that, but
Speaker 5: at the same time, we got home and I just
Speaker 5: felt so bad that, like we took two weeks driving
Speaker 5: home and this man has a broken shoulder and we're
Speaker 5: just like, yeah, you're fine.
Speaker 6: Well, you guys didn't like rock and roll home.
Speaker 3: We didn't like we had to change our.
Speaker 6: Plus just how was like crawling into your makeshift dirt.
Speaker 3: Beds and friend's houses along the way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So basically we just wanted to like stay with
Speaker 5: the friends that we were already planning on seeing and
Speaker 5: just to give him kind of some time to recuperate.
Speaker 1: Story a thousand times an anytime you went in anybody's house, going.
Speaker 3: Been talking about it quite a bit, which is fine.
Speaker 3: I think for me that's therapeutic in a way.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I keeps the story alive, I guess in my head.
Speaker 3: The first time I did when I got my phone
Speaker 3: is I wrote that post before I even thought about
Speaker 3: posting it. But I just wanted to have all that
Speaker 3: information down while it was still fresh.
Speaker 8: How long how long was it for the phone started
Speaker 8: ringing from like.
Speaker 3: Not as soon as I made that post, I would say,
Speaker 3: I for the first week, I was getting fifty to
Speaker 3: seventy phone calls a day. My inbox on Instagram was
Speaker 3: just crazy. That's why I didn't see Corinne's message right away.
Speaker 3: Yiannis ended up messaging me and I follow him, so
Speaker 3: I went straight to my inbox. Yeah, it's the media
Speaker 3: has been crazy. The media is really like so essentially
Speaker 3: like they really kind of kept her out of it
Speaker 3: and made her seem like a damsel in distress, and
Speaker 3: I was like, no, Like, she helped save my life.
Speaker 3: She was a very she contributed a ton to it.
Speaker 3: And then the other extreme they would go to the
Speaker 3: opposite way, were like Chloe paramedic rushes into action and.
Speaker 5: I'm clearly not a paramedic. Guy was put in my
Speaker 5: place that day.
Speaker 3: They some some places were like Shane Burke combat hardened veteran,
Speaker 3: disabled veteran fights off grizzly. I'm like, dude, very modest
Speaker 3: about my combat time. It was very minimal, Like most
Speaker 3: of the time that anything that happened to me in Iraq,
Speaker 3: it was just the insurgents basically just trying to annoy us.
Speaker 3: So combat, I wouldn't even say combat, just sitting, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of times it was just indirect fire or
Speaker 3: just randomly shooting out our trucks when we drive by,
Speaker 3: and some IEDs and stuff. But it was never like
Speaker 3: I wasn't running a gun and kicking doors in and
Speaker 3: looking for saddam myself.
Speaker 6: Just getting randomly shot at and blowing up is fine.
Speaker 3: That's fine. So yeah, so yeah, it's And then what
Speaker 3: really really pissed me off. There's a YouTube video that
Speaker 3: he he got all of his facts within less than
Speaker 3: twenty four hours of the bear attack so.
Speaker 1: On, and made one of those dumb videos. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: in the news, those like bad, it's bad. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: super bad.
Speaker 5: It has the exclaimer that says, please respect the victim
Speaker 5: and their family, and we're literally in the comments like
Speaker 5: none of this is accurate, please.
Speaker 3: And they would just delete the comment, right, facts rude.
Speaker 3: So that that was that sucked. And I've had some
Speaker 3: like you know, hate mail, like people have been like, oh,
Speaker 3: you should have died up there, like because of what,
Speaker 3: because they're just I don't.
Speaker 2: Know what's the criticism.
Speaker 3: So a lot of people, not a lot of people.
Speaker 3: I would say it's been overwhelmingly supportive, absolutely overwhelming. Jackson
Speaker 3: in particular big shout out to Jackson. I can't even
Speaker 3: think Jackson as a whole enough for the care the
Speaker 3: like we hospital The hospitality was through the brief really
Speaker 3: kind of so. But there's some people three nine nine's
Speaker 3: fan group we're telling, like trying to tell people that
Speaker 3: spread rumors that we were out there over a carcass
Speaker 3: trying to harass Bears.
Speaker 4: Three days prior to the attack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had only been in t Times for a
Speaker 3: couple of hours, and not the type.
Speaker 6: Of harassment where you just parallel them on the interstate
Speaker 6: all the freaking day long telephoto lenses that harassment.
Speaker 2: People on that Bears fan page.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a few messages like, oh, you're no hero,
Speaker 3: And I was like, I never said I was a hero.
Speaker 3: I was like, self preservation doesn't make you a hero.
Speaker 3: I said, I just.
Speaker 6: Did a plank in a bear's mind.
Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, It's like I just survived something that
Speaker 3: was really tremendous.
Speaker 2: What was the thing? What about have sitting on a carcass?
Speaker 2: What did they say?
Speaker 3: So this woman messaged me and she was like you,
Speaker 3: She's like, you know, you're not a hero that the
Speaker 3: people in Jackson are, you know, just so you know,
Speaker 3: there's saying that you did this and no one believes
Speaker 3: your story, and I'm like, okay, like I I was
Speaker 3: super respectful, I have you know, And then there's just
Speaker 3: other people that were like.
Speaker 9: Who would their right mind would go stand next to
Speaker 9: an elk carcass?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know that.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the best, one of the best arguments for
Speaker 1: grizzly bear recovery is that you get enough of.
Speaker 2: Them that none of them have a name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like or even a number that none of Yeah.
Speaker 1: The whole idea of like fandom around individual animals, Oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is what it is, and I
Speaker 3: don't it doesn't bother me because at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, like when these when these people are are
Speaker 3: setting this stuff to me, I'm just like, all right, yeah,
Speaker 3: someone's parents don't love them, and it shows.
Speaker 5: My favorite misconception was just be honest, it wasn't a bear,
Speaker 5: tell us what it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't know if that's what they're trying to go with,
Speaker 3: or if they're like, you did this to yourself somehow.
Speaker 3: I I don't know.
Speaker 10: I think with your history of baiting bucks into.
Speaker 2: The deer guy again, the crack guy. Yeah, was an adventure.
Speaker 2: You glad it happened or bummed it happened?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a little I'm bummed. I I'm not
Speaker 3: I like being under the radar. So like my Instagram
Speaker 3: following went from like two thousand people to over twelve thousand.
Speaker 2: Uh, there's waiting for what's next.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's a little something I'm not used to.
Speaker 3: I guess I'm thankful for some opportunities that did come
Speaker 3: out of it, but and I'm just thankful to be alive.
Speaker 3: And I hope that if anything, like people just learn
Speaker 3: from this experience the best they can and maybe it'll
Speaker 3: prevent one other one because it is I know, like
Speaker 3: when so the Otter podcast was like one of the
Speaker 3: ones I listened to on the way here or so,
Speaker 3: it's really in my mind. But you mentioned that you
Speaker 3: kind of want to have like a soft encounter with
Speaker 3: a grizzly.
Speaker 2: That's a little touch. Yeah, I don't know. This is like, no,
Speaker 2: I want that much.
Speaker 4: Maybe the softest an attack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was a lot to.
Speaker 2: Come up, and it's gonna be like listen, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: scratch you right the chest. This was you're ready.
Speaker 3: This is definitely okay, do it.
Speaker 2: I'm ready.
Speaker 3: This is a very mild attack all things considered a
Speaker 3: little too heavy duty for me. Yeah, it sucks. My
Speaker 3: my tissue and my legs is like really tight right now.
Speaker 3: So it's like not hard to walk, but I feel it.
Speaker 3: I feel like when I kneeled down, I'm stretching it.
Speaker 3: It feels really bizarre. And the shoulders just a really
Speaker 3: big step back because that's gonna hurt my climbing. I
Speaker 3: don't know if I'll be able to hunt this year.
Speaker 3: I might try to apply for a like a temporary
Speaker 3: crossbow license just but then I gotta buy crossbow. So
Speaker 3: it's kind of like, uh, I might just sit this
Speaker 3: year out.
Speaker 6: Across help you out.
Speaker 4: There's cliffs that you can lure.
Speaker 2: A good boulder set up. Yeah, I just.
Speaker 6: Now we played the wedding game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, that would be cool if I could
Speaker 3: get across temporary crossbow license, because then I could I
Speaker 3: could hunt, and uh, that'd be sweet because I have
Speaker 3: put actually a lot of time in one of the zone.
Speaker 8: Pretty they'll give you one.
Speaker 2: Come on, you'll figure it out. We'll make some calls
Speaker 2: and find your cross that'd be cool.
Speaker 7: But I got to say I was not.
Speaker 11: I was not certain what you look like when you
Speaker 11: walked in here today, and uh, you know.
Speaker 2: You thought you'd look a little more beat up.
Speaker 11: Yeah, privately I thought maybe I won't be the worst
Speaker 11: looking guy at the podcast. But like you, I mean,
Speaker 11: if a guy saw you on the street, unless they
Speaker 11: knew what they're looking for. Like, I'm just shocked that
Speaker 11: it was three weeks ago, because some of those photos
Speaker 11: are pretty overwhelmed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't. I've I've always bounced back pretty quick
Speaker 3: and and all these injuries.
Speaker 2: I had, Yeah, dude, you're a survivor.
Speaker 3: Man, every like the eye injury. You know. I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm I got deployed a Poland, Like I want to go, like, uh,
Speaker 3: you got to fix me, doc, And she's like, this
Speaker 3: is like a year long situation. I they fixed me
Speaker 3: up in six weeks. She was like there's no She's like,
Speaker 3: everything has to go exactly right for you to go
Speaker 3: to Poland.
Speaker 4: She said better than perfect.
Speaker 5: So at the postop appointment, I was like, how does
Speaker 5: it feel to be better than perfect?
Speaker 7: Wow?
Speaker 3: The brain surgery, I bounced back really fast. I was like,
Speaker 3: I said two months after I was hunting, you know,
Speaker 3: by myself.
Speaker 2: I get these ingrown toenails.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll suck.
Speaker 8: I see her off your wrist brace there.
Speaker 2: Oh, also good loss like carple To, a lot of
Speaker 2: your sympathy. I'm feeling you. No, Yeah, you've been health
Speaker 2: You've been through hell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: I hope to. I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I want you to keep it up, if I want
Speaker 2: you to chill out.
Speaker 1: I need you need like a little good luck streak,
Speaker 1: now I do I do you guys canna take a
Speaker 1: second Chance out of honeymoon?
Speaker 2: Do you feel sick? You feel like you got to
Speaker 2: take care.
Speaker 3: Of So next summer we'll be back in Montana. A
Speaker 3: company or organization rather called Operation Second Chance reached out
Speaker 3: to me and it's basically like disabled veterans or purple
Speaker 3: heart recipient retreat, so a couple's retreat.
Speaker 2: So we that's cool. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So they reached out and they're like, hey, man, like,
Speaker 3: actually this wonderful wildlife photographer out of Montana named Colleen
Speaker 3: I think she. I want to say she was the
Speaker 3: first person I responded to on Instagram. She's been super,
Speaker 3: super sweet this whole time. She like, she's like, if
Speaker 3: you ever want to come back, I'll show you this
Speaker 3: gray owls you can photograph. She sent me care package.
Speaker 3: She got me hooked up with this Second Chance organization.
Speaker 2: Photographer sticking together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, total sweetheart. She's been awesome. So yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: That's some stuff to look forward to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that'll be the time. Unfortunately, like working
Speaker 3: for the government, time off is like I have generous
Speaker 3: time off. However, like this is going to set me
Speaker 3: back so far that I gotta like tiptoe around what
Speaker 3: we're gonna get for time what I'll have for time off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's working for the army. I also guys worked
Speaker 1: for the government, They've got nothing butt time off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I I, like I said, it can be generous.
Speaker 3: But because I'm at zero right now, essentially after the surgery,
Speaker 3: I'll have to I have to cruise some time off.
Speaker 3: But we'll we'll see by the time we get there
Speaker 3: out of a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: So get your good job with the ARS, dude, Yeah,
Speaker 1: non stop time off, that'd be nice.
Speaker 2: Well, all right, man, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us big fans. So yeah, really really
Speaker 3: happy to be here.
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Do forget your bear spray again.
Speaker 11: Yeah, thanks for sharing my pleasure.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Thank you.