Army veteran Shane Burke and his new wife were on their honeymoon
in Wyoming. They were also celebrating
Shane's recovery from a brain tumor.
Shane decided to go off on his own for a bit to get pictures of
a rare owl. His wife stayed near the vehicle
and that's when the terrifying ordeal began.
All of a sudden I just saw this brown cub just run as fast as
they can away from. Me Shane came up on a mother
grizzly in her cub. The mother grizzly protecting
her cub attacked and severely mauled Shane.
Felt like I was being tackled by a linebacker and I just remember
her driving me by my legs and she would just bite, pick me,
slam me, throw me all around. Oh.
My gosh, this is my interview with Shane.
And you won't believe how you was able to escape and survive.
Your discretion is advised. Well, First off, I want to thank
you for your service. Thanks.
And man, what you do is pretty amazing.
And based on the small amount that I know about you, other
than the grizzly bear attack, I think it's pretty cool.
So so you tell me about your story when you were in the
middle of where were you at? And you were, from what I read
about you, you were looking for a like a certain type of an owl,
am I right? Yes, yeah.
So I was looking for a great grey owl.
I'm a little bit of a bird nerd, but I mostly enjoy Raptors,
Birds of prey, so great Grey Owl is a a species I've never seen.
I know they frequent Yellowstone Ecosystem, so that was one of
the birds that I just wanted to check off my list.
Where? Where do you live?
So I live in Western Massachusetts, little little
town called South Hadley. I grew up in Granby, which is a
neighboring town. It's just South Hadley's a
little more affordable. So that's where we ended up.
We, we're on our honeymoon. We had just left, we were on day
eight of the honeymoon when the attack happened.
So we had hit pretty much, I didn't really count it in the
trip until we hit the Badlands. That was like the first like
stop for us. So we went to the Badlands and
that was great. Showed my wife all the spots
that I, I went to when I was out there in 2020.
And from there he moved on to Yellowstone, which Yellowstone
was always like a dream of mine to go to something that my dad
and I had talked about. And he had passed in 2020.
So and thanks. And I didn't get to go.
So when I went down in 2020 to out West, it was after his
funeral. And I had, I was on active duty,
the Army and I had like 32 days of straight vacation.
So I was going to do a road trip.
I made it to the Badlands and then COVID happened and the army
called me back. So I had to go back.
And in hindsight, I was kind of glad I was really missing my
family. And I, as much as I wanted that
for myself, I was still really grieving.
So coming home wasn't the worst thing in the world.
But a few years ago by I deployed to Poland with the army
right right before Ukraine got invaded.
And when I got home from that, it was discovered that I had a
brain tumor. And so my wife and I decided
that we would kind of do a backyard wedding just to get all
my ducks in a row in case something bad happened during
that surgery to remove the the brain tumor.
It was benign. So yeah.
So we got married. And then two years later, we
finally felt like my health was in a good place and her health
was in a good place. And she was about to start
nursing school. So we decided that we would go
on our honeymoon finally. And so that's why we went on
this trip, although like we always wanted to do a, a long
cross country trip together, but pretty much from the moment I
met her, there was always something going on.
So we just didn't get that opportunity until then.
So like I said, we hit Badlands, then we went into Yellowstone.
You know, it took like maybe two days to get the Yellowstone from
there and we camped out, had a great time, saw all the animals,
got my bear fixed. I think we saw like 5 or 6
grizzly bears. Oh man, so I already like.
Little foreshadowing. Yeah, right.
It was really cool 'cause like, so we woke up on the morning of
the 19th and our plan was pretty casual.
We're just woke up, made breakfast.
Actually, when I woke up, a wolf ran right through our camp,
which was pretty neat. Yeah, it was awesome.
And my wife is still asleep. We're sleeping in the van.
And like, I like tried to wake my dog was going crazy and I
tried to wake her up and she didn't get up in time.
But yeah, just ran right through our camp, which was pretty neat.
I had this weird ominous feeling too when I woke up that morning,
like just heavy heavyweight. I don't know.
It was really bizarre and I was kind of in a bad mood because
of, it was really weird. I was being really, really
grumpy. So anyway, broke down camp, went
to Old Faithful because obviously neither of us have
seen that. So we, we saw that continued
South and then had lunch and then we stopped at the Signal
Mountain Rd. trailhead and that's where we parked.
We, my wife, my dog and I, we all walked up the road for about
maybe a quarter mile or so. Was there anybody else on the?
Road. Oh, there's so many people.
Yeah. When we were going up, a
Backcountry wildlife safari was coming down.
It was a guy and two or three clients.
And we just had a quick talk like they were looking for great
graves too. So they said that they didn't
see any, but they also didn't see any bears or bear sign.
And then they asked if I had bear spray.
And I was like, Yep, it's right here.
My wife had a bear spray. Yeah, I was wearing a chest rig,
spinal harness, so it was mounted right underneath it.
And so, yeah, so we, we, you know, said goodbye and my wife
and I walked up about 1/4 mile, maybe half a mile.
And my wife was like, OK, I'm going to turn back around, get
tonight's itinerary ready 'cause we were going to drive after
that South and camp out outside of the park.
So I was like, all right, yeah, I'll continue.
I'll move, you know, I'll stay on this hilltop area and just
bounce on and off the road, whatever, you know.
And so that's what I did and made my way up the mountain, saw
people out there at one point when I crossed into the thicker
wooded area where ultimately the attack ended up happening across
the road and there was must have been 15 bikers that came flying
by. So there's a lot of people.
So you. Obviously felt safe, right?
This was like, there's people everywhere.
I got my bear spray. Nothing's going to happen.
We're just looking for owls. And so, yeah, I had this false
sense of security for sure. And I don't know, I just kind of
kept meandering around. I did end up seeing a bird once.
I got to like, I was not on the summit of single mountain, but I
was like on a human trail at this point.
I remember because I had picked up someone's glove, like a
mitten that I found and I was going to break it down, just
leave it on the trailhead. So yeah, I just kind of was
going through the woods. I set an alarm for an hour.
That alarm went off and I was like, oh, I need to get back.
I told her I'd be gone for an hour.
Were you by yourself at this point?
Yeah, yeah. So you got very deep.
I wasn't deep at all. The the furthest away from the
road I ever was was a mile, like parallel to the road.
So yeah, so I really wasn't, I wasn't far.
And you know, the one, the one thing that kind of like made me
feel I was like, oh, man, all right, I'm not alone.
Is actually on the human trail. There's some really old grizzly
bear scat. And when I saw that I was like,
Oh yeah, you're still in bear country, dude.
Like let's, let's wake up and, you know, kind of be pay more
attention, I guess. Not that I wasn't, but I did
definitely was like, I need to be a little more vigilant.
That's when I started like making a lot more noise.
So anyway, my, my alarm went off and I basically, I kind of
looked at the map and because this wasn't really a planned
part of the itinerary, I didn't prematurely download the, the
map so that I would have like a great scale to go off of.
But I could see, you know, through the pixelated screen you
parked here. So I kind of looked at the, the
human trail I was on. I was like, OK, if I take the
trail and then go down the road, we're looking at an hour and a
half more probably, or I can just beeline it and take 40
minutes, 30 or 40 minutes and I'll be back at the car.
So I opted to do that. And so I just started going down
the hill. It's like steep at times.
And there'd be like open areas or it'd be like a almost a
valley with a bunch of sage rush.
Yep. And so, yeah, I just kind of
just kept moving. And I have a bad habit of just
being really fast. And that definitely contributed
to the situation. When you're moving, you should
in bear country. This is the one thing I really
didn't know, I guess was it's better to move slower, give the
bears that time to hear you so you're making all this noise and
stuff. But if you're moving just as
fast as them, they're not going to like that.
So yeah, yeah, I didn't really think about that.
And so basically a certain, I'm not sure at what point from
where I decided I was going to go back to the car to when the
attack happened, but it wasn't very, very long.
See, So yeah, I was kind of went down in this valley and was
pretty thick at this point with the timber and, and there's a
lot of trees and stuff on the ground.
And I had just hit this patch of snow and it was the first snow
I've seen in a little while. So I was like, oh, that's cool.
There's still snow around. And I walked through that and
then there's like the hill is coming down in front of me.
So once I walked around the steep part of this hill, all of
a sudden I just saw this brown cub just run as fast as it came
away from. Me all right.
It was. Cub.
You saw the cub first. OK, yeah, so I saw the cub
first. The cub was about 50 ish yards
away, not very far. And at this point the first
thing I did was like, that's a grizzly cub.
And I scrubbed my bear spray. It was the first like thing I
did. And I looked down to take the
safety off and I looked up and then all of a sudden the mom was
maybe 10 to 15 feet away. And yeah.
And you know, so when she when when I saw her coming, I was
just like, no bear, no bear. And I like, you know, from what
I've researched, it was like, you should stand your ground
and, you know, make yourself big.
And so I kind of tried calling her bluff.
And all this is happening super, super fast.
So all all these little these decisions I'm making are, you
know, happening lightning fast. And I got the safety off and I
went to sprayer and she was like already basically on her hind
legs jumping. And I was just like, oh, so I
just dove down with her and she as she hit me and it literally
just like felt like I was being tackled by a linebacker.
And I still like your. Front Was she coming at your
front like this? Yeah, she was head on almost
like out of my 11:00, essentially.
And so as I dove to the ground, she collided with me and just
made the craziest sound. It was just like, I don't even
know it was. It was really intense.
And she had so much momentum at that point that she actually
kept her momentum, went over me, turned around.
At this point I was just like, all right, so I just got in the
position that they tell you to do.
So you have usually two options. I laid with my chest and belly
on the ground with my hands and arms like this behind and I just
laid flat to the ground and or you can get in the fetal
position and I, I feel like that makes you a little more top
heavy so it's easier to kind of roll you around like a ball.
So I that I just didn't do that. And so at this.
Point. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
How are you? How are you having the mental
capacity to even think like that?
Are you are you are you literally like like remembering
like bear attack one O 1 like I'm just going to lay.
Flat. Like how did that just pop into
your head? I so on the trailheads there's
the kiosks and they tell you exactly what to do.
And I just, I heeded that I just did that exactly what they
showed on the kiosk and that definitely like contributed to
me not dying. Wow, Yeah.
So essentially I just laid there and just took it for however
long it it was happening. And I just remember her grabbing
me by my legs pretty much from underneath my butt cheeks down
to my the back of my knees. And she would just bite, pick
me, slam me, throw me all around.
And I don't like, I think she was trying to like, maybe flip
me over or, you know, maybe she was just, I don't know exactly.
But I just knew that I had to, like, protect all my soft tissue
the best I could and not let her get to my neck if I could.
And so she's doing this. She bit me three times on each
leg, lifted me in the air, slammed me down.
And then she had me in the air by my right leg.
And she was, you know, it hurt more than the rest.
This is like, the first time I really felt pain in this whole
incident. And I just let out like this
bloody murder scream essentially.
And she just kind of dropped me at that point and then stood on
my back and went for my head. And and so thankfully, you know,
I had the bear can spray, the bear spray can still on my
fingers, which, you know, I'm not afraid to admit this.
Like, I had no idea. Like that wasn't a planned
action. It's just thankfully designed to
have that ring and it'll, you know, stay in your hand if you
maintain that grip. So simultaneously as she went to
bite my head, you know, she got my hand, which is like this big
scar here. She got my wrist here and she
also got the can. And definitely if she didn't, if
that can wasn't there, she had 100% would have bit right into
my head and I wouldn't have made it.
So you know, total chance luck that that happened and I'm just
really grateful for the design of that can did.
You did you. At what point did you know she
bit the can? I till after she ran away.
So all of a sudden I just heard like a pop and then just like a,
I don't know, like a bunch of air escaping from a can, right.
It didn't compute that that's what it was.
I was like, man, that's what it sounds like.
You get bit in the head by a grizzly bear.
OK, and then, you know, and I felt all this warm sensation
flowing down my head and my my neck and I was ended up being
the cans content. But what what triggered me to
like realize that she wasn't with me anymore was I heard her
like pause thundering away from me.
And I just kind of like did a push up real quick and looked up
and I was like, you're still alive.
And I just jumped up and I just sprinted as fast as I could in
opposite direction. So so.
You were able to walk. You weren't like to the point
where you couldn't. This yeah, so.
Nothing's broken or. So yeah, so basically what
happened was I, I started running and it was pure
adrenaline, real realistically because the, the muscle in my
right leg was dangling out of my leg.
I just didn't know I was wearing pants.
And so that was pure adrenaline. I, I will say like not to like
fluff my ego or anything like that, but like I hurtled trees,
crawled under trees. I ran.
I thought it was further away. But after meeting the Rangers,
we discussed, you know, exactly how far I ran.
I ran a little under 200 yards away from the actual initial
attack site. Oh my gosh.
And it was also all uphill. So I got to, I got to a point
where I at this point I had called my wife and told her what
happened and she started, she initiated the rescue efforts.
So. Was that your first phone call?
Yeah, yeah. So I called her once and it
failed. Then I'd like text her just one
word attacked. And then as I was like hitting
send, she called me back, 'cause I didn't have service like the
whole time I was out there. But all of a sudden, like, I
just got 3G and I was like, yeah, I was like, all right, I'm
going to, I'm going to call my wife and tell her I love her
because I'm dying. Yeah.
So we, we discussed, you know, what to do.
And she's like, you know what to do.
You know, being in the military, I've, I've taken numerous, what
we call combat lifesaver courses.
So improvised tourniquets aren't, there's something I've
practiced, you know. So essentially she was like, you
need to, you know, start applying tourniquets.
And I was like, well, I need to get summer safe first.
So I got to this plateau on the hill and there was I, I could
like see in pretty far distance all around me.
And at this point my adrenaline started to wear off and like it
started, started to do like blood sweeps and realize how
much I was bleeding. And I like put my hand
underneath my butt and I was like, that's a lot of blood.
It felt like, you know, kind of like leave a faucet on a little
bit and it just poured like kind of drizzles out of the faucet.
That's what it was like. And, and so at that point I was
like, OK, I think I can triage here and I can see in every
direction really far. I feel generally safe at this
point. So I started to just, I took my
knife out and I just, well, first I filmed the video just
saying goodbye just in case I did die.
Oh. My.
Gosh, I just got attacked by a grizzly bear.
I'm I can't stand. Oh, if you've seen this, I love
you. Bye.
So you weren't like, this was a, this was a goodbye video.
This wasn't like documenting what's going on at all.
This is just like, Yep, yeah. So I basically I actually
released that video on the anniversary so that the one year
anniversary was Monday the 19th. Oh wow.
Anniversary. Yeah.
Thanks. So I actually did release that
video and I've, I thought about that all year if whether or not
I would release that. And I just felt like it would
give context to like where I was at in my mindset and that
situation, how calm I actually was.
And cause a lot of people are like, yeah, not that important,
but a lot of people are talking a lot of trash on the Internet
and. Oh wait wait, they were talking
a lot of trash about you on the Internet.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Why?
Oh, we can get to that after, I guess.
But essentially just just troll. Trolls are gonna be trolls.
I don't know. Like you did something wrong.
Like you deserved it. Like.
There was a lot of that. There was a lot of.
There's one guy. One guy was saying that he heard
me. He was there next to the Rangers
and he heard me crying on the radio.
And I'm like, what? I never once cried.
Dude, I don't know what you're talking about.
This is really bizarre. It people are weird.
Internet's weird. It's yeah.
I know how that goes. I got a few.
Trolls. I understand.
Yeah. So I made the video just to kind
of say goodbye just in case. Like I I felt like I was OK, but
I also was, I never like, went unconscious, but I did get real
fadi at times. And I was extremely dehydrated
because I lost my water bottle. And yeah, so I basically applied
some tourniquets. I didn't even know my shoulder
was broken. I, I knew like my arm, there's
something wrong. My arm, I couldn't really
maneuver it well. I'm taking my jacket off was
really hard. But so I applied two tourniquets
to my left leg and one tourniquet to my right leg.
And it seemed to do the job because like after I applied the
tourniquets, I moved. And then, you know, when the
little bit before the Rangers got there, I moved again and
there's a lot less blood under me.
So they were doing something I'd like to think I knew it wasn't.
I wasn't bleeding from the arteries, so that was good.
It was just like a deep, dark red, you know?
So yeah, I kind of just sat there and I was on the phone
with my wife a lot. She was kind of trying to
coordinate. Unfortunately, my cell phone
wasn't functioning as Agps really well.
So I would give them coordinates and they're like how?
Did you know your coordinates? Through Onyx, but because
because the service just wasn't good.
It was just dishing out false coordinates.
And so like she's on the, you know, she's standing there with
the Rangers. They're like, there's no way
he's there. Like that's nowhere near here.
So essentially my wife was like just you need to call 911, get
on the phone and dispatch her. They're going to talk to the
helicopter and we're going to try to get you that way.
And so that's what I did. I talked to a dispatcher.
She was really helpful pretty much right away.
She's like, hey, we're going to put the helicopter in the air.
Can you hear it? And I was like, can I hear?
I can see it? And they're like, oh great.
Like, like give me some directions on where they need to
go. I was like, if they stop right
now, turn to their 3:00 and fly straight, they're going to
basically fly right over me. And so that's what they did.
And they flew right over my right shoulder.
And of course I'm like, stop, stop, stop, stop.
And so they, they stop and then they circle and then finally,
like I heard that like I'm, I'm, you know, waving to them and
stuff. I was like, they're right there.
They're right over my, like they're just to the South of me.
And basically I was like, I started to kind of crawl to
them. And then I heard the dispatcher
say, Oh, they, they see you, they see you stay put.
And then they're hovering over like a field kind of, or like an
open area. So I was like, I wonder if
they're going to land like maybe or drop a bass, like maybe I
should just crawl to them. So I started crawling to them
and and then I heard my name and then a Ranger was coming towards
me. And so he connected with me and
I hung up with the dispatcher and then they just started
triage, started working me. And that's why that was the
first time I felt safe because like, as soon as he touched me,
all of a sudden it was just like Rangers everywhere and 12 gauge
shotguns. And I was like, hurry.
Up there from. The.
Point from the point of the attack to the point of where the
Ranger touches you. Just a little, little less than
two hours. So you, so you had been how long
did the attack? How long if you could?
I know, obviously time. Barely.
Yeah, barely a minute. Like it was maybe somewhere
between 60 to 120 seconds. Wow, so.
It happened to everything. 120 seconds of your life.
Yeah. I mean, everything about it
happened so fast. It was remarkable and like it.
Yeah. I mean it.
It was insane. Did it feel?
Fast and during the attack it feels slow like it felt like
slow motion. Yeah, it felt like, felt like
slow motion, felt like an eternity.
Yeah. It felt like hours had gone by.
I don't know it it was it is pretty crazy.
But then once it was over, I was like, oh, wow, like that was
violent and crazy. And you know, like I when I the
first thing I did was just run and at a certain point, like
when I started to kind of like touch myself, I saw my hand and
that was the first thing I saw. And I'm not sure if you saw the
picture, but it was a pretty good wound.
And when you see that you're just like, I mean, I don't want
to know what the rest of me looks like.
So they worked me. It took about 45 minutes maybe
to get me airlifted. They had to make make sure I was
stable. 0 pain meds they got, you know, all the Ivs ready.
They. Zero pain meds.
Why? Why?
Why 0 pain? Meds, they weren't, they weren't
sure when I was going to go into surgery, so they couldn't really
give me much of anything. So that's when they, they just
started packing me with gauze. Every hole that she created was
just stuff. I think one of them said they
they put over 40 feet of gauze in me.
Oh my. Gosh, what was your what was
your pain tolerance like during that?
I would say like you know, post attack when I'm applying
tourniquets, I really wasn't in a lot of pain.
The shoulder was in a lot of pain once they got to me and
they started like moving me a lot and packing me.
That's when I started to like, really, I'm like, wow, this all
right. My adrenaline's going down and
I'm now I'm really feeling all of this.
And it was just like, man, I mean, every time they, they
rolled me over and they're like up there's a hole here.
There's a hole there. And it's just, Oh my gosh, yeah.
And that was really painful. Like getting packed with gauze
is not fun. And I, I know that not by
experience prior to this, but you know, they when we're, when
I'm taking these classes, that's something they talk about that
like your patient or you know, it would be your, your battle
buddy. You know, when you're, when
you're doing this for them, they're going to be in a lot of
pain. They might try to fight you, but
you just got to do it. You just, and if you think
there's enough guys in there, there's probably not.
It's kind of what the soft rule that they taught us in combat
life saving course. But yeah, so they basically
wrapped me up in this burrito device that like basically
compacts you. You can't move an inch inside of
there. They lowered a device down from
the helicopter and Lexi was one of the genuine Lake Rangers.
She clipped in and clipped me in, and then we got airlifted
out of there. They call it a short haul.
So essentially they flew me from the triage site to a parking lot
where the ambulance is waiting for me because I was stable, so
there's no reason to fly me to the hospital.
I guess that's a ambulance and all the
rubber neckers were there waiting for me and, and then
they loaded me into the ambulance and that was the first
time I was able to see my wife. And that was just like a I'm a
very like in these moments, I just don't really show a lot of
emotion. And so like she walks in and I'm
just like, don't cry, don't cry, just I'm going to be OK.
We're going to be OK. And you know, she, I didn't
realize that we were going to be there for so long.
So I was like, all right, get out because I want to go to the
hospital. Hi, baby.
It's your dad. Yeah, he's back safe.
Yeah. It's like, I like, I was like,
get out of here. And then one of the Rangers came
in, and he was the lead investigator of the incident
itself. So like, when these things
happen in national parks, there is cause for legal
ramifications, like if you're harassing a wildlife.
So they got to do their due diligence to figure out whether
or not I was being a nuisance or if that's a nuisance, bear and
address it accordingly. So there are legal implications
for this if you're found, you know, to be guilty of it.
Thankfully, I wasn't 'cause I told him the truth.
I showed him all my data, everything, like I wasn't hiding
anything. So.
How, how soon after the attack are they doing this
investigation on you? So they they initially started
it right away. He asked obvious questions like,
hey, like, what kind of bear was it?
I was like, it was a grizzly bear.
How do you know it's like big brown bear, big hump, like very
aggressive, like I've run into hundreds of black bear, like I
know what a black bear looks like.
So and that's, that's kind of it.
And he's like, what was you just wanted to like get an
understanding. And I was like, well, there's a
cub. Like she was protecting her cub.
I knew that right away. So he wanted to take some
pictures of my wounds. And so he came in and I was also
buying new covered in bear spray still.
So that was that was honestly what I was feeling pain wise.
That's that was the worst part. The wounds, whatever, they all
sucked. But the bear spray wasn't really
affecting like my lungs or anything like that.
But it was really, really rough on my skin and I was just, my
skin was just on fire and was it going into.
Like the cuts and stuff like that too.
I. Didn't really notice.
It was just like getting into my pores.
The ambulance, because I was at such a high risk of shock.
The ambulance was, the heat was turned up all the way.
So like I got in there, it was an inferno.
So I started sweating profusely. And so the Ranger came in and
he's like, can I take pictures of your wounds?
And I'm just, I'm kind of a people pleaser sometimes.
So I was just like, sure, dude, that's what you got to do.
And then I was like, this sucks. But he like he just like lifted
the sheet up and was like, Oh no, we got to repack all these
wounds. And I'm like, what do you mean?
Dude, just get me to the hospital.
So they take all the gauze out and repack every wound.
So I don't understand. They finally gave me some
fentanyl just a little just to, you know, take the edge off.
But they're like, we really can't give you a lot because we
don't know if you're going into surgery so or when you'll go
into surgery. So yeah, so that was that.
We drove down to the hospital in Jackson Hole and amazing people
there. I.
Think it's like 45 minutes, maybe a little, a little less
than an hour. So we get down there and just
instantly, like obviously they were ready for me.
I show up and there's probably 1214 nurses and staff and
doctors waiting for me and they just instantly just start, you
know, look looking at everything, taking pictures,
just kind of come up with a plan to address the issue.
Unfortunately, because this is probably a little after 5:00 at
this point, maybe hard to say. So I don't, I don't think I went
into surgery until 8:00 PM some sometime around then because I
had had lunch. So they're like you need to wait
a little longer before we can go in.
So anyway, yeah, and that's kind of the gist of it.
Mostly, I was only there for a night.
The next day I got released, but I had to stay in town because,
like I said, they were doing that investigation and I didn't
have my phone or my camera. And so they kind of came in to
my whole. So we had to get a hotel room.
And so they came into the hotel room 2 days after the attack and
we're like, we'd like to go through your phone, look at your
pictures, look at your camera pictures, make sure you weren't,
you know, harassing the bear. And I was like, Yep, whatever
you need. So I gave him all my pictures.
Who does that happen? Who's going to harass a grizzly
bear in the middle of nowhere when you're by yourself?
Yeah, it's very slick. It does happen.
And that's, you know, I don't, I can't fault them for it, you
know. But yeah, so I mean, doesn't it
just seem? Doesn't it seem a little weird?
I don't know. To me that just seems odd, like.
It is odd it that's. Your is that really your concern
right now? Is that, is that the concern?
We're going to be worried about harassing a bear?
And I don't think they were worried about that necessarily,
but they got to figure out like, why this happened, right?
So they got to make sure that, like, this bear isn't a bear
that has attacked other people. They got to make sure, you know,
they got to make sure that the bear is acting in a natural
capacity, right? Because if it was acting
abnormally, like it just went after me to eat me or kill me,
that's a bad bear. They got to deal with it.
So but if I put myself in that position, which I obviously did,
but if I were like neglectfully putting myself in that position,
which I wasn't, then that's a, you know, a discussion that
needs to be had. So I showed them all my
pictures. I showed them all my data, like,
you know, because obviously, like when you take a picture on
your phone, it shows you exactly where you were on the map.
So I showed them all that and they were satisfied.
You're like, we're not getting, you know, no need to keep you
here any longer or anything like that.
You know, I'm really sorry this happened.
I still talk to some of them to this day.
Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah, really incredible people.
Yeah. So that's, that's the, that's
the attack. What's what's life been like on
the back end of this whole thing for you?
What was recovery like for you? Recovery is hard.
At first I was having tremendous nightmares.
I literally would not sleep. I would basically stay up all
night till 67 AM and then finally be tired enough to
sleep. I physically I it was hard like
my legs ended up being just fine.
Everything was fine. The broken shoulder was pretty
crazy. But the, the one thing that I
will say like where I, you know, it is what it is and it's, I'm
not mad about it, but like they didn't take X-rays to see what's
going on in my arm. And you know, I had complained
about it saying my arm is pretty messed up.
Obviously the first thing to tackle is just all the open
wounds, clean them, stitch them up or staple them.
And they never even looked at my arm.
And so the next day when I was getting released, I actually
like had this big bulge sticking out of my arm.
And the nurse was like, has that always been like that?
And I was like, oh, my God, no. I was like, what's going on with
my arm? And she's like, it looks like a
dislocation, but let me, you know.
And so they, they, you know, the ortho came in.
He's like, ah, it's just dislocation.
I'm like, all right. He's like, go see your ortho
when you get home. Cool.
So it took, you know, we took our time going home.
We still drove home. And oh, my gosh, yeah.
So two weeks later, I'm at the VA getting the staples removed.
And I was like, you know, at this point my arm, I'm already
able to basically move my arm, but I couldn't lift it past
this. And the Vapa, she was like, I
was like, oh, OK, thank you for everything.
I'll see you later. She's like, no, no, no, you're
going to ortho right now. She's like, look at your arm.
So I was like, oh, OK, sure. And I go in there and I look at
like at the first X-ray, I look at the screen and it's just a
tiny little screen and go, that's broken.
And the tech is like, I can't tell you whether it's broken or
not. That's not my job.
And I'm like, Oh no, that's broken.
You're like, I can tell you it's broken.
Yeah, so it was broken and I needed a pretty serious surgery
again. So essentially when she, my
theory is 'cause like she bit down through my trap and up
through my lat and so I have this giant scar in my lat and
then I have this big scar up here in my trap.
And I think when she bit down, she probably like did some
torquing and that snapped my acromion process, which is like
the very end of your shoulder, which just has it's basically
anchor point for all your connective tissue.
And so that was just completely obliterated, non existent, not
connected whatsoever to anything.
And then my clavicle was all separated also.
So like, you know, now I look at it like my breast was hanging
down like like this. It was just, it was all crazy.
So yeah. How are you today?
I'm OK. Monday was kind of tough, just
weird and bizarre. It's like I'm really grateful to
be alive. And, you know, I'm not afraid to
admit it. Like I've had being in the
military, having deployed to Iraq, and I've had complications
of, you know, I like, you know, it's not uncommon for service
members to be suicidal at one point or another.
And so there are there are points in this healing process
where I definitely got some low points.
And Monday, I just felt extremely grateful that I'm
still on this earth and that I get to still have my body, you
know, like I'm just really thankful that all these people
rushed to save my life and, and keep me alive and that, you
know, I've had to like maybe redefine some relationships with
rock climbing and hunting and stuff.
But I'm learning how to appreciate those relationships
again. It's been hard.
I was very, very athletic before this happened.
You know, the brain tumor really took me down a notch.
And then this really took me down a notch.
And I just tell myself everyday like, it could have been so much
worse. And, you know, I'm, I'm not
religious at all. And so I just got to look at
this as, you know, I'm one of the luckiest unlucky people out
there. And it's it's just a total,
yeah, I don't know. I just, I feel so incredibly
fortunate to still be alive. Are you in any type of therapy
at all from I mean obviously physical therapy for a while I'm
sure, but what about like mental therapy do you see in?
A second interest. Anything in all you get.
Any groups PTSD type stuff or? Yeah.
So I mean, I've, I've been in therapy for six years now.
So I've been working with, I've had a couple different
therapists in that period, but unfortunately just lost my
therapist, the doge. So you have yeah, I can from the
this current administration. So I'm currently without one.
But I think we left off in a good enough place that I have
still have resources even though he's no longer my therapist.
With that said, it was pretty funny when I got home because I
kind of got frustrated when I was coming home, traveling home
after the attack. And reading all this false
information out there about my situation.
So that's that was one reason why I came clean like just flat
out was like, I'm the guy that got attacked.
Here's my story from the source. Take it you know as you will and
so. Where was the false information
coming from? There, I mean this guy made a
YouTube video like the day after it happened about me and I was
like, dude, that is not factual at all.
OK, so some guy was like, I here's a here's a video.
I think I'm going to get clicks on.
It's a bear attack video and he just created something and it
wasn't at all what happened. OK, interesting.
It's not that it wasn't at all. It's it's that he took the very
limited amount of information that was actually out within
that first 48 hours and made a video based off that
information. And a lot of that information
had matured over time before by the time I came out with
everything. So with that said, like a lot of
his details were very vague and just like kind of made painted
me to look like this idiot that was out in the woods had no
business being out there. I was unprepared in certain
aspects, which we can definitely touch on, and I was very well
prepared and not only that, like I knew what to do in a situation
and a lot of what I did contributed to me not dying.
I, I gotta imagine that you were probably one of the most
prepared people. I mean, there's people that will
probably give you a hard time for saying, well, you should
have been carrying a firearm or something.
Well, obviously you're in a different state that it is, who
cares, right? You had bear spray, you had it
in the right spot. You were able to get it out,
which every person that I've spoken to and I've talked to
probably I've interviewed. You're my third grizzly bear
attack survivor. I've spoken to probably 9 or 10
so far. I think you're the only one that
was able to get to bear spray like as the person who is being
attacked. So I think you've you were
pretty prepared. Somebody who's got military
experience, somebody who understands how to take care of
wounds, somebody who read the at the trailhead, the, you know,
the, the sign that said this is what you do in a bear attack.
Like nobody reads those. You read it right.
Like you, you were able to understand, to lay flat, to put
your, to play dead, to put your hands in the right spot.
They have bear spray. I mean, if anything, you were
more prepared than anybody I've ever spoken to.
So that that blows my mind. Yeah, it was.
That was it. That stuff didn't really affect
me too much like the, the haters and stuff, but it was just like,
dude, like you're always going to have trolls, you know, that
having this big of a platform that you have.
So I, I had, you know, came out with my story and I wasn't sure
if I was going to and then I just decided to do it.
And I mean, then I became viral and it was like overnight I had,
you know, I went from 2000 followers on Instagram to
15,000. And that was something I'm, I'm
not a private person, but I also like, definitely.
Do you like to fly under the radar, if you will?
I'm not. Yeah, I'm a ham.
But you know, I, I kind of still like, I'm not used to this.
Yeah. I'm not used to posting
something now. And like, I, you know, I get the
opinions of 1000 people almost instantly.
It's really bizarre. It's something I'm not used to
at all, even a year into this, but yeah.
Well, it's interest. It's the, I mean, the, the
squeaky wheel, it's, it's like the, there's 99% of the people
that are on your side, just so you know, and it's just, it's
the one or two that say something stupid and that just
somehow sticks in the back of your head.
That happens to me all the time. I see those kind of comments all
the time. But I'm going to just tell you
right now, I've spoken to a lot of people, like I said, that
I've had similar situations. And this isn't just bear tech
victims. This is just across the board.
You were pretty freaking prepared and you're a pretty
amazing guy for coming out on the other side and being as
together as you seem to be in this interview, as I can tell
right now. And I mean, you know, when the
camera's off and you know, you're by yourself and you're
thinking about that you're having those nightmares, maybe
you feel like it's a different story.
But I think that and the fact that your wife is an EMT, right,
right. I mean, it couldn't have been
more obviously the bear. We wish that hadn't happened,
right? But it none of this could have
been more in your favor. I don't think I, I got one
question for you though, like if, and I ask everybody this in
these situations and I, I'm, I'm just curious, but if, if you
could go back to that day and just peel this portion of that
day out of your life completely? Like if you could just, you
know, wipe away, erase the bear attack, would you do that?
Or has this maybe sort of brought a new trajectory into
your life that maybe you maybe wouldn't be where you are today
for some reason? It's a really good question.
And if I could take it back, I mean, it's definitely like it's
giving me character, but it hasn't.
It hasn't. It's taken more for me than it's
given me, for sure. You know, my shoulder's still
not there. Rock climbing is incredibly
hard. I love rock climbing and it's it
has, you know, like I said, I have this new relationship with
it, which I just have to accept. And that's OK.
I'm on the other side of those bad feelings because of this.
But I guess I wouldn't take it back because I just, I truly
believe in not doing that. Like, I think, you know, I do
think everything happens for a reason and maybe that the reason
for this just hasn't manifested yet.
And, you know, one thing that I think this has done for me
personally is just kind of really giving me a platform that
people might listen to me when I talk about the needs for better
conservation and stuff like that.
I love animals. I've always loved animals.
You know, like, I want to do something good with this.
I just don't know how yet. And we'll cross that bridge when
we do, So I wouldn't change it just because I do think that
there's something in store for me in the future because of
this. I just don't know what yet.
Yeah, for sure. I, that's pretty much the same
answer I get from everybody. You know, I, I mean, what I,
what I've heard from most people that have had situations like
yours is that the PTSD is the worst part of it and.
I don't know. If that's true for you at all.
But they've had some pretty, pretty, pretty tragic post
traumatic stress disorder. From everything, I, I definitely
have a cabinet brain and I'm really good at
compartmentalizing based off my childhood and just being in the
military and all those, these hardships I've had to endure.
So I really worked hard with my therapist on not locking this
away too, too much. He, he did bring up a really
good point on that. He was really concerned that I
was putting up this front because I was doing so many
interviews and just retelling. So it's retelling.
My story's been therapeutic. But he's like, now you've just
regimented it and he's like, have you actually truly
processed it? And yeah, I don't know the
answer to that. It comes up in weird times, you
know, I mean, it's every day. I think about it literally every
day. I'll be driving and then like
the hairs of my neck will stick up and I'll go like, I'll just
think to myself, like, that didn't happen.
There's no way you survived that.
Like, and I, I replay everything in my head and like, but it, it
did. And like I just, it's a really
bizarre, complex thing to walk away from, like nearly dying.
The the cool thing, I guess, is I've connected with a lot of
Fair attack survivors. Actually, I've met one.
There's actually another guy that lives in Massachusetts who
was attacked 20 years ago who I haven't connected.
Like we haven't met yet, but we plan on, you know, grabbing
dinner together soon. The guy that was attacked, I was
attacked in May and he got attacked in Alaska in August and
accidentally shot himself in the leg.
His name's Tyler. He lives in Austin, TX.
I have family in Austin. I went down there last year and
and I just like reached out to him.
He was like, hey man, you want to get a beer?
And we talked and compared stories and.
How was? That it was incredible.
It was very therapeutic, I. Think somebody somebody finally
gets it right. Yeah, 'cause you can regurgitate
the story so many times when you're looking a human in the
eyes. That's like not only experienced
it, but experienced it like four months ago, right?
And then I experienced it six months ago.
Like it was incredible. And we talked about daily, but
weekly still. And it was funny 'cause he
actually. So they came in.
You want to go to Glacier? And I'm like, let's pump the
brakes. I'm not there yet.
I was like, yes, I do just not have.
You been? Have you been back out into bear
country? So we, we were flown out to back
to Jackson Hole by ABC and they did a special on the on the
story on ATV show called Hearts of Heroes.
And that was pretty cool. They basically flew us out, my
wife and I out there. And then we got to meet all the
Rangers that, well, not all of them, but most of them that were
were there that day. And that was incredibly
validating. And they got the bear spray can
actually let me go get. Yeah, go grab it.
So that whole experience was
incredibly validating and I was extremely nervous because these
are the people that saw me on probably one of my worst days
ever of my life. And I know what it's like when I
have to go do my job in the Army.
So I'm I'm a mechanic, but also a Hemet wrecker operator.
So when somebody gets their truck stuck in the mud, I go
pull it out with a wench. If they roll it over or
whatever, like I'm the recovery guy, I get a little salty when I
go do my job. So I, I was kind of like, yeah,
what do these people think of me?
And I was so nervous, so freaking nervous.
And they all just were smiling ear to ear and just so happy to
see me. And they all were just so nice.
Big old hugs. There's 11 Ranger in particular
who I felt like I, at least for me, I really bonded with Her
name's Isabelle. And she was there like she's a
Navy veteran and she was right here on my left side working me.
And she was just really cool. And I just, I don't know, I felt
really connected with her. And so it was really important
to see her. And she couldn't get to the
visit until the very end because she actually had to go on a call
where a guy was having a heart attack.
So, and she, she was really great.
So I was really happy to see her and reconnect and talk.
But yeah. So this is the the can here.
You can see a big hole in it. Oh, my gosh.
So it was, oh, my gosh, you know, behind my head like this,
I I think. And that's kind of how she got
right there. Oh, my gosh.
Yeah. That's crazy.
Oh. My gosh, but this is product of
UDAP. So I'm trying Mike, I think is
the owner's name and he he actually reached out and gave me
a phone call and we talked. So he he was a grizzly bear
survivor and the grizzly bear attack survivor.
He was bow hunting with his friend and he got mauled by I
think a ma, a sow with her cub also.
And what saved his life was back then the spray technology was
basically pepper spray. So it was a liquid form and his
friend came running over with it and it was only a little, little
can and he sprayed her in the face.
And that's what saved his life. And so after that he dedicated
his life to making the most potent form of bear spray.
So that is this and it's the most potent one on the market.
So that's. Crazy.
How's your how's your family? Good.
It was, it was very, it was traumatizing.
We we're very stoic people, not the most like it's weird.
I don't know. I didn't grow up like with a
father that said I love you and showed any emotion or anything
like that. And so it's kind of how we all
are. They're all just really happy
I'm alive. And we just, we don't really
talk much about it. It, it comes up sometimes, but
it's, yeah, it's kind of kind of something we don't really, we
don't talk about too, too much. And, and I won't bring it up,
but if someone else brings it up, I'll talk about it.
But I'm not, well, I, you know, so.
But they're good. You know, the wife, it was hard
for her. She had an insane amount of
survivor's guilt, even though I didn't perish, but she still
felt like she should have been there.
And it, it, you know, it's hard for her to accept that, even
though like it, if she was there, who knows how that could
have played out differently. And I tried, you know, we're,
we're obviously over this hurdle now.
But I always was trying to tell her when it first happened was
like, we don't know how it could have happened.
We don't know what have happened because a year before my
incident, a couple and their dog was killed.
That could have been it, you know, And like, I just.
And what if Cadence was there? I mean, that dog is one of my
best friends. Like, I don't know what I would
have ever done if I got either of them into danger like that,
you know? So that that was probably the
hardest thing for a while. It was just her and I somehow
coexisting. Not mad at each other, but mad
at the situation. And yeah, it was.
It was pretty rough for a while. Man, but I, I think you've got a
pretty incredible story that man, I, I, I mean, I, I, I've,
I've been in a situation where I had to get rescued.
But your, your situation, I feel like you have this ability to, I
think help people in this situation that have been through
this. And I think that there's a
future ahead of you, probably one that maybe you don't even
see yet. You know, I think that you're
probably going to have some pretty cool opportunities,
unfortunately out of a bad situation, but I think it's
going to turn into something good for you.
And I, I think that's something to look forward to for you.
And man, I'm so impressed with you because you're, you're, I,
I, I want to reiterate, you're the only person who was as
prepared as you were. One guy had the bear spray in
the bottom of his backpack, right?
Another guy couldn't at all get to his bear spray.
His buddy got to his bear spray and sprayed the bear off of him.
I mean, I I can't. I'm trying to.
I think in, almost in, yeah, Todd, I think yeah, he he
definitely had it. He was prepared.
I've never talked to Todd. I know who he is.
I'm talking about the guys that I've talked to got you.
But I yeah, the ones that I've spoken to you, you're by far the
most prepared out of all of them.
And I mean, I, I think you've, I just lift your head up a little
bit. Man, I'm a yeah, I don't know.
I'm I'll I'll take I'll take the criticism.
It is what it is. And you know, the whole gun
verse this or that, like you know, that's.
That's neither here nor there. Who cares man?
Who cares? It it, yeah, it is what it is
and I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say.
I do wish I had another can though, 'cause knowing like when
I was up there alone, like at this there, I, I let go of this.
I didn't even know like, yeah, they had to recover at the scene
of the, the, the attack. But when I was up there alone
and all I had was my knife, I'm like, man, if she comes back
because she, So what happened was like, she actually ran
towards the road, right? So I was only, I, I want to say
it was like 600 yards away from the road when the attack
happened. And then I ran like diagonally
up and somehow got about 900 yards away from the road where I
was rescued. And so she, I was always super
concerned that somebody, because I knew she ran towards the road.
I knew, I knew where the road was.
I just knew she went that way and I wasn't going that way
either. And so that's why I ran back the
opposite direction further into the woods.
And so I constantly was sitting there with just the knife in my
hand, just like, is she going to come back this way because it's
someone going to spook her to me?
Or if the Rangers are coming from the road, are they going to
spook her towards me? You know, and then I'm looking,
I'm like, I see a tree with some branches that maybe I can get up
or, or is this really my last stand?
I, I just didn't know. So I would say I, I do wish I
had a second can like even in my backpack or something, you know?
But yeah, so. You're the you're not the first
person to say that. I've heard that too, that people
wish they would have had a second can with them.
That's really interesting to hear cause a lot of people won't
even bring it, which I. Think is.
Mind blowing. I don't understand.
Absolutely. That's stupid.
Yeah. You didn't do anything wrong.
You were doing everything right. There's a lot of people that go
out in the middle of nowhere. Man, I think, I think your story
is pretty incredible. I know you're not a religious
person. I am a religious person.
I think God's got a plan for you and a plan for this whole
situation and whether this happened for a reason.
You know, I obviously did. But I think, man, that's a very
incredible story. So I mean, I just appreciate you
sharing it with me. Thank you.
You you got an Instagram, you said, right?
Do you want people to follow you?
This. You want to shout it out?
I mean, I'm, I'm an open book man.
It's, it's no beef Stew for you. So it's just an N 0 beef Stew #4
and then the letter U. Yeah.
So, yeah, thank you for having me on here and giving me a
platform to tell my story. And I just hope, you know, that
people can learn from it. Read the kiosk, you know, bring
a first aid kit. Maybe a SAT phone if you want,
if you do, if you get out enough, SAT phone's not a bad
choice. But I mean, it's almost hard to
find no service these days, but it's those pockets exist.
I was in one and yeah, just, you know, just take take the risks
that are that are worth it to you and have fun out there and
it's it's a beautiful world to experience.
So don't, don't let my situation scare you because I, I would
definitely, you know, go back out there once I can afford to
and I can't wait for that day so.
Awesome. Well said.
Thanks, Shane.
I appreciate. You.
Yeah. Thank you.