National Park After Dark - Mauled ft. Jeremy Evans

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Today we had the opportunity to sit down with Jeremy Evans. He is an avid outdoorsman, family man and author. Growing up in Alberta he fell in love with the outdoors and dedicated most of his life to being in it - often times alone - deep in the backcountry. It was on one of those solo adventures in August of 2017 when he had what he describes as an “oh shit” moment when he witnessed a terrifying sight - a lone grizzly cub. Instinctually he knew mama was nearby, and he was right. Mauled: Lessons Learned from A Grizzly Bear Attack details what happened next that forever changed Jeremy, but didn’t stop him. Get in touch with Jeremy HERE and find his book HEREFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month of online therapy by using our link.Microdose: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.Athena Club: Go to athenaclub.com and use promo code NPAD today and you’ll get 25% off your first order!Reel: Use our link and code NPAD to get 30% off your first order plus free shipping.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data.

It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff, knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice.

Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. everyone welcome back to national park after dark we have a little bit of a different kind of episode today we're doing an interview of a story that i think that everyone's going to be very interested in hearing and many people have suggested that we look into so for people who have sent in different book requests or requests for stories we always love to hear them but there has been one that's

kind of like popped up frequently over the last couple months and it was about a particular book called Mald and it was about a man who encountered a grizzly bear in the back country and they're like, hey, you should read this. Not even really about an episode. You know nothing about that. Just like, hey, it's interesting and you should read it. So we did one better for everyone. We sure did. We did read the book. Yeah, not only did we read it. We contacted the man. His name is Jeremy Evans, the subject of the book, co-author of the book for an interview. So he's here today to tell us all about his experience and we had the pleasure of speaking with him today. We're recording this intro just after we finish our interview. But he is an avid outdoorsman. He's a family man and he is now an

author. He grew up in Alberta, Canada and he fell in love with the outdoors at an early age and he dedicated most of his life being in it. Hunting, fishing, exploring, camping, oftentimes doing it solo deep in the backcountry. And it was on one of these solo adventures in August of 2017 when he He had what he describes as an oh shit moment. While scouting for sheep through binoculars, miles from the nearest backroad, he lowered them to see a terrifying sight, a lone grizzly cub. And instinctually, he knew Mama was nearby and he was absolutely right. What happened next forever changed Jeremy, but it didn't stop him. Jeremy is truly an inspirational guy with an incredible story to share.

He co-authored the book Mald, Lesson. learned from a grizzly bear attack that was released last year. In it, he details his life, the attack, and the aftermath, and it is such a wild ride. So often we read about or share stories of incidents like Jeremy's, but it is truly nothing compared to getting a firsthand account straight from the source. Not only are we adding a new book to our book club collection for you all to go out and buy and read, but we are so excited to welcome Jeremy Evans to the podcast. Well, hello, Jeremy. Thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Thank you for inviting me. I'm excited. Yeah, we're very excited to have you. We came across your book, Mald, lessons learned from a grizzly bear attack, because several of our listeners actually messaged us on Instagram. It was like, I just read this book. You have to read it. Like, please read this book. And we bought it immediately and read your book. And we both read it very fast. It was very entertaining. And I shouldn't say entertaining. It was very interesting. And I think that everyone else is going to be really excited to learn about your book as well. Awesome. Well, just jumping into our first questions.

Our first one is you grew up in Canada and you were exploring the outdoors. You have a lot of outdoor experience. Can you just tell us a little bit about growing up in Canada, where you grew up, how you grew up in the outdoors and just about you? Yeah. So I grew up in Calgary, Alberta. We were about a 45 minute drive away from Canmore or being right in the mountains. I spent the majority of my time as a kid doing lots of camping, fishing, hiking, and lots of hunting with my father. We used to go sit in tree stands and watch animals all the time.

And I was probably the best times of my life was being out sitting in the ground blind or tree stand and watching the deer walk by or watching a squirrel rolling up and down the tree beside you. Lots of lots of excitement. I guess my young adult all years did lots of traveling around in the mountains, fishing, hiking with my girlfriend at the time, now wife. Yeah, we spend, I guess, 90% of our time out there running around. It's a beautiful area up there. I've been up there once. And it's very pretty. There's a lot of wildlife up there. Definitely, a lot of remote places, too, where not a lot of people go. And that's what I like about it.

Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. That was apparent throughout your book. You like the remote places, huh? Yeah, I just, we're, you know, so normal places that we go to go. If there's people there, we just keep going further back in until there's nobody there. I like the quiet, the peace and quiet and be able to sit there and not see anybody in the day and watch the animals walk around, like I guess I'm interrupted. And it's just, it's kind of neat. Yeah.

Away from society, untouched, just out in the wild and the wilderness. It's a wonderful place to be. I like the quiet. And then at night you can see the stars and that's pretty cool. That's the best star-fazing with no light pollution. Doesn't get better than that. Yeah. That's some beautiful nights sitting on top of mountainside sleeping underneath.

the open stars, you know, it's hard to fall asleep when you're watching them all dance across the sky to get the occasional meteorite shooting through, you know, it's pretty awesome. Yeah, you can't beat it. So you were out adventuring one day, the day that you were attacked by a grizzly. So tell us a little bit. Again, we don't want to like spoil the whole book. So we're not going to get into the super details. Every detail.

Yeah. So don't feel the need to divulge everything. But what were you doing that day when you were out? So on that morning of August 24th in 2017, I was heading out for a sheep hunt that I planned for a four-day hunt. I was heading out on day before, or before opening day, day before opening day. And my plan was to go out, set up my camp, look for my ram, and then watch them for the rest of the afternoon and hopefully the next morning and be able to harvest them. So it was about probably around two in the morning, two, three o'clock in the morning. I left my truck in the moonlight on my bicycle and bike my way into the area.

trail kind of is like a road in the beginning and then it goes to more like a two very growing in two ruts in the road down to a little horse trail and then you get further back it's more of a game trail kind of faded into the landscape through the willows and the last remaining spruce trees and so I was near the edge of the tree line with the spruce street kind of end where the little more willows pick up I was watching some sheep and just kind of moving 10 feet at time along the hillside watching for 10 minutes move 10 feet ahead and as I was sitting there watching some sheep. I repositioned myself.

I had my elbows on my handlebars and looking across the hillside. And as I repositioned, I noticed a little brown thing running in front of me less than 10 feet away. And I knew right away what it was.

It was a grizzly cub and had this overwhelming feeling of being in the wrong place. Like I knew I was in a bad situation. Cubs there, where's mama? And so I was reaching down in my backpack to grab my bear spray. I heard a branch break over my right shoulder.

And there was mama, less than arms, reach away, full charge of running in. I mean, I remember the look on her face with her mouth slightly open. She had her right paw stretched out to grab me. You can see the whites of her eyes. Yeah, it was, I had literally like half a second to react. And I just basically. And it was black almost too. This time was around 9 o'clock in the morning. So the sun was. Oh, 9 a.m.

Yeah. So the attack happened around 9 a.m. It took me quite a few hours to bike in and then hike into where I was. It was about, I say, around 9.30 a.m. at this point. And yeah, I had literally like half a second to react. And she got her head caught in the frame of the bicycle, and then round one started. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders.

That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little, person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. And I love in your book, you described that moment of seeing the grizzly bear cub as your oh shit moment. And I thought that was so brilliant because I think that's the first thing that I thought of when you described the brown

dot in my mind. I literally said, oh, shit. I wasn't sure if I was a lot of love to say that. Oh, yeah. You say whatever you want. Okay. Yeah, it was one of those oh shit moments. Like it's just, it's a woman like, oh shit,

where's mama? Like you just, you knew something was wrong and you knew her in a bad spot. And that feeling still haunts me to this day and just, you get the goosebumps and it's like being in a race car or a car and you flip it over and you're flying through the air

and it's like slow motion. Like, this is going to hurt. You know, this sucks and what do you do, right? You're waiting for the car to hit the ground. And that's, I would say that's kind of like what it was,

the feeling. Had you been to this area, this specific area before? Oh, yes. I've spent 17 years in there prior to this, hiking into in and out of there. And in the years prior to, actually the very first time walking into there, me and my wife were going in, you know, probably like 17, 18. We ran into two grizzly bears in the same area.

And we startled them. They stood up and were grunting and snapping their jaws and took off down the run down the hillside. And I know this area quite well, and I know there could be bears in there. Yeah, and it sounds, you had your bear spray and you had a gun on you as well. Correct. My gun was strapped to my backpack.

And then that morning, I was too excited to get out there and ride my bike in and get out to look for sheep that my bear spray, it had it in the truck on my seat. And I just threw it in the bottom of the back. I just threw in the backpack thinking, you know, what's the chance of me seeing something in there? We haven't seen a bear all summer. You know, what's the chances of one being in there? And I took a chance. And, well, I paid the price. Yeah.

So you mentioned that was the beginning of round one. And in your book, you go into great detail about the three rounds that you had with this individual. So without obviously going into great detail, can you describe kind of the next couple events? Yeah. So round one kind of simplify it would be me and my backpack trying to use it as a shield, beating her with it, trying to push your back, smashing over the head. She was snapping at me pretty good. So I was trying to get her to back off.

And then it seemed to work. And she started to back away. And then I tried to take my bear spray out or my gun off my pack, and I was kind of fumbling through. And I remember looking back up, and she turned around and come charging back in. And at this point in time, I chucked my pack at her and decided I was going to run up the mountainside. It was a very steep hill, so I figured I could run up the hill and jump off of the hill into a tree and hopefully get above her so she wouldn't be able to grab me. Well, I ran up, grabbed a tree, and jumped into it, and I was about five and a half, six feet off the ground. And I remember looking down and she stood up on her hind legs, wrapped her paws around my right leg, pulled it down, and I could just see her mouth open up.

And she lunged up, grabbed my leg. And I just remember looking down going, oh, this is going to hurt. And she ripped me out of the tree. It was a fairly small spruce tree, say about probably an eight-inch caliber tree. And she ripped me out of the tree, and I hit the ground pretty hard and crawled underneath the spruce tree. She was digging at me with her claws trying to pull me out and spruce brows were protecting me. I wrap myself my arms and my legs around the tree. She's digging away, and then she just all of a sudden reached in and grabbed me on the left side, kind of in blow the ribs above the waist in the love handle area.

Pick me up, chucked me about four or five feet, and hit the ground really hard and knocked the wind out of me. I remember just trying to curl up on the ball and take a breath, and I was laying on my right side, curdle up into the ball, and she jumped on me instantly. And her first bite caught me on the corner of the left eye and the nose up where the tearduct is, One of her canine teeth threw her on the one side of my eye, the other ear on the other side.

And she crunched down, crushing the whole left side of my face from my eye socket all way down to my jaw. And that's when I was laying there going, well, this sucks. I mean, getting chewed on my bear sucks and playing dead and getting chewed on. Yeah, that wasn't for me. So I rolled over and decided I was going to fight back and started poking her in the nose, poking in your eyeball, grabbing her ear, just whatever I can grab. And she was snapping out my hands.

And then she came down to bite me in the face a second time. And when she did that, it was kind of like an awesweet moment. Just the way her head came down, it was kind of in the perfect position. I punched my left hand up into her mouth and just remember the feel of her tongue as my fingers slid down. It's like leather, smooth leather. You can feel all the bumps and all the scars and shut my fingers down her throat and grabbed her tongue. And she kind of started to gag and make all kinds of funny noises. And her back legs are digging into my right side.

And I was hurting pretty good. So I was trying to push her off of me and pushing her hind end with my arm. arm and it slipped and hit the belly and you could feel there was no hair or thinner hair and more skin and I reached up and grabbed at the time what I thought was balls and twisted and pulled and she made a horrible sound like a pig squeal, a real deep, deep squeal of a pig. And I just remember just her reaction and the smell of her at that time and she was just jumping around and then I like go and then she went running back the way she came just defecating across the mountain side just running away squealing like a pig. At that moment I got up dusting myself.

off, walked over to my pack, pulled out my cell phone, and I took a selfie. Yeah, we saw that in the book. That was definitely. What made you think to take a selfie? Well, at first I was wanting to see what I looked, you know, how bad it was because I was like, do I go shoot that sheep over there or do I go? You were still considering keeping your trip? Yeah, I was.

I was quite mad that my four-day trip got cut short and was only first thing in the morning. I just got here. I can't leave. That's right. And so I'm sitting there looking at the picture going, well, it's not that bad, right? I can go look for that sheep or, you know, go after this bear. And I just remember I was sitting there. I was pretty disappointed.

Like, it just, it sucked because I spent all summer and I finally found a ram. And to those point, it was 17 years of not ever getting a ram. And this is the closest year I've ever been to getting one. So I was pretty bummed. And as I was sitting there, you know, loading up my gun, I had it leaning against the right shoulder. And I was lowing up the clip, just trying to think, like, what do I do now? And as I'm doing that, I heard a sound of like, I, breaking. And my hands, everything went numb. And I just remember, you know, everything dropping. And

the bear had come back, grabbed me by the back of the head. And she was dragging me back into the bush. And I could just feel her paws and see her on the side of me. And she's digging in and pulling back. And you just hear huffing and dragging me. Not quite how far she drugged me in, but it seemed like a little ways. And I was sitting on my butt and leaning against her front legs. She reached over with one of her paws on the right side of my face and caught me in the corner of the mouth and nose and peeled back all the skin on the right side of the face, removing my ear. And then she was gnawing on my head, the back of the head, top of my head, and crunching on it and just ripping and tearing everything. After a few seconds, she moved,

and I fell back and landed on the ground. And all, at this point in time, I couldn't see anything. My left eye was hanging out of the sock in my right eye. It was actually smashed and back into my skull. I didn't think I had a right eye at this point. And I just remember seeing or kind of seeing a really dark thing above me and they could feel the fur. So I reached up and found something soft with both hands, twisted and twisted and pulled on as hard as I could, and then I wrapped my legs around her neck and locked him in and whatever was holding on to.

I was trying to pull off, and she started bucking around like a bronco rolling around on the mountain side and making a horrible sound. And then I figured she got the point, the hint, and I can tell that she was moving quite fast, so I let go. And she went running down the mountain side,

just squealing like a pig, like a real deep, deep, squeal like a pig. And then I couldn't stand right after that. I just, everything was a blur. I, you know, could hardly see maybe three feet if I was lucky. I end up crawling down the hill and I found the trail and I managed to find my pack. Even though you can't see that well. Yeah, it was all blurry, like just dark shades of green and brown and kind of make things out. Well, I knew where I was roughen on the hillside. Once I found the trail, I was able to figure out which way I needed to go.

I ended up crawling down the trail a bit, and I found my, uh, my pack, and I found my gun right away, and I had some shells, and I tried to put them in the, in the chamber, but I couldn't get them in because my fingers are all bust up going different ways, and I couldn't see good enough to be able to drop a shell right down into the chamber of the gun, because the gun I had, it has a clip to hold the bullets, and without the clip, you drop a shell, and it just falls out the bottom of the gun, unless you can get your fingers in there enough to drop them into the, uh, chamber. So I was panicking and I looked feeling around on the mountain side looking for the clip.

And then the first thing I found was my mustache and goatee. And then I found my face and then my ear. And then feeling around, I actually found the clip and stuck it in the gun. And the first thing that was, first dark looking thing got three rounds right away. And then, you know, searching around. And I found more pieces of my face. And it was kind of holding my hand trying to figure out what to do. And yeah, that was kind of the end of round three.

When all this was happening right now, you speak about it so clearly, like you knew, obviously now reflecting, you know everything that was happening in the moment of everything going on. Was it just so fast? Or were you having these thoughts of like, oh, I need to grab this? I need to do this. You fought the bear. Were you, was it just straight reaction? Or were you having like real like thought processes while it was happening? Most of it was probably reaction. The whole event was maybe 12 minutes long from when I, first made contact with the bear till when I let a goal in the last round. I was all about 12 minutes in length of time, but the actual physical part when I was fighting the bear was between 90 and 120 total

seconds for all three rounds. Everything happened very quick. The part where the second round two, where she bit my face to shove my hand in her mouth was probably the longest. I'd say about 45 seconds of direct contact with her. And then the last round, well, I'm going to say it was probably around the same. amount of time. Everything happened so quick and so fast, yeah, it was just more or less reacting.

Well, and you do mention that, you know, the two things that you did were very reactive based, number one, running and number two, fighting back versus playing dead, which are two things that, you know, textbook is don't do, but you were not in a textbook and you were in a very real situation and you did just mention, you know, it wasn't for me. You know, fighting back was my option. And I just find that so intriguing. And do you ever wonder, like, if you didn't fight back? Not that that was even really an option in your mind. But if you did continue to play dead, do you think she would have left or just based on the amount of time she came back for you? Do you just, what are your thoughts on that? I've actually never really thought about it because

everything I did I did right because I'm here today. Right. It worked out. Yeah, it worked out. So why would think of the other options? You know, I remember talking to my brother about that in the hospital and he says, why would you think about that? You did everything right. So leave it at that and move on because, you know, I struggled with PTSD for quite a while. And in the hospital, I struggled with nightmares and flashbacks. And I was always wondering what if I did something different or played dead. And after he told me that, it doesn't matter. You're here today. You did everything right. And that's a great outlook to have because it is kind of not a wasteful thought, but it's one that doesn't need energy when you are, you made it on the other end.

because of your actions and you fought like hell. And just for everyone listening, you're a bigger guy. Like you put up a good fight. How you're, you're a tall guy, right? Over six, five, three. I'm six two.

Six two. And at the time of the malling, I weighed about 250 pounds with the way to me in the hospital. I was in really good shape at that point in times. So, I mean, but that bear was talk about powerful. Like she just tossed me around like a rag doll,

nothing I could do to stop her. And it just totally, I don't know, it's surprising with all, she was a fairly good-sized bear, but just the amount of power she had to chuck me around like a rag doll. Like, I mean, it was scary. Yeah, I can imagine how scary that that would be. And then now even after the third attack, you're wandering around and you're gathering everything and you're trying to find out the trail, find where you are in the trail and navigate your way back, all while still having to worry that she's still around.

Yeah, like, I thought she was done after the second round. I didn't think she'd come back for a third. And the third one surprised me. And that gave me lots of, well, that one was part of the reason why I got lots of trauma or PTSD because I always thought she'd be coming back. I'd have a flashback where I'm getting shoot on. And then people would wake me up and I'd be out of it. But I'd always be worried, no, she's coming back.

You know, like, no, you're in the hospital. Jeremy, you're fine. Like, no, she's coming back. Like, that was always stuck in my head. And even today kind of haunts me quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, going from that situation, I imagine that it's really hard to remove yourself from that, especially it was, it sounds very traumatic. And to survive even not just the attack, but going further into your book, you're how you survived. I mean, you fought really

hard to get out of the woods and you detail it a lot in your book. So it wasn't, even though the attack was 12 minutes, your actual entire length of time surviving and getting to the hospital and getting the care that you needed was much longer than that. It was about 12 hours because I was attacked around 9.36 a.m. and I made to hospital around 917 that evening. And that's after, you know, hiking out, uh, hiking and crawling out over, uh, 12 kilometers. And then about a 22 kilometer drive to a little resort, uh, ranch slash resort. And then from there, private helicopter route to sundry, not a small town, about 20 minute flight away. And then to Calgary, which is about an hour and a half in ambulance. Uh, yeah, it was quite a long day. And I do remember, you know, every step, every little rock, every branch,

twig, deadfall that I had to crawl through, crawl over. I've done multiple visits to the site since the attack. I was there on the one-year anniversary, third-year anniversary, and just recently on the fifth year anniversary with my wife and kind of did it a play-by-play of where everything happened and the whole hike out. Had she been up there before? She has. She's been up there several times, but it was a while. She hasn't been up there in a while to that area, but she's been up there before and kind of knew relatively where it happened. What was it like going back after, after all of that happened. On the one year anniversary, we went back with the game wardens. They flew us in there, looked for some personal gear mine that was never recovered. We went up there looking for it.

And it was a little overwhelming at first. And then I got to sit beside the log where the bear came back and dragged drug me in. And I had a little mini flashback there. One of the guys was walking through the bush and behind. And I went into a full flashback to the incident. And it was very emotional, very tough. When I went back on the third year, it was much easier. still pretty nervous walking around there every little branch twig break you know leaf falling uh totally on edge and then when we went back on the fifth year a little bit easier still on edge like you know i got my bear spray out and always looking around and uh it's getting easier it's incredible that you go back out there yeah and i do want to i do want to ask or at least comment on now that we're kind of on the subject of your emotional

healing journey versus your physical healing journey there's a very i love this point part of your book, I had to write it down. You mentioned that getting counseling or psychological help is a strength and not a sign of weakness. And obviously, you kind of touched on different aspects of your PTSD and emotional trauma following this. Is this something that obviously you're still dealing with, you know, however many years later. But if you're comfortable sharing just kind of your journey with counseling and how you've dealt with that aspect of the attack, that would be lovely. just yeah no problem uh so from right from the get go getting into the hospital when they woke me up from surgery i was constantly in and out of flashbacks nightmares you know every time i fall asleep i'd

wake up that way at a very very start i had a good friend there was a social worker and what he would do is massage my feet that's the only thing that wasn't damaged and he would tell me i'm in a safe place and he'd always squeeze my feet and massage them and when i'm going through a flashback or nightmare and wake me up that way and that way they just kind of trained my boss and i'm in a safe place and body to take me out of it and then I wouldn't be so confused or lost. Just waking up from that and you get to go from the bear. Now you're in a hospital room. You don't know what's going on.

How did I get here? You know, you lose time. That was very hard. And I knew after, you know, day two, I needed help. I wasn't going to be able to overcome this on my own. And I asked for a therapist to help me out. And so we got right away. We got a therapist, got her up there and she'd work with me every day.

And plus my friend who was a social worker, he was in there every day. We had to have somebody with me 24 hours a day. because the flashbacks were so severe, and then people would touch me and try to hold me down on the bed, because I'm rolling around, and that would make them worse. And I started fighting back, I started hitting nurses or doctors, because you don't know what's going on, and you wake up, you're confused, you're trying to get out, you're ripping, you know, trying to rip the IV lines out of you because you don't know what to do or where you are. And even looking at myself in the mirror, we covered up all the mirrors in the, in the bathroom and that.

I don't want to see what I look like. I thought there was, you know, like mechanical nose or pieces of my face. And I thought it was really bad. And actually, I felt bad for my wife that she was still married to, you know, somebody who's missing all this stuff. It wasn't until like the third week in the hospital that actually looked in the mirror where you had to get a bunch of friends there. And the nurses all helped out with trying to cut my hair, keep my facial hair looking nice.

And I tried to spruce me up for the, for the debut of it. Kind of made a big deal about it. It was huge. And then once I saw, I'm like, oh, well, it's not that. bad because we all have been seen for the last three weeks is hours and hours of staples and stitches being pulled out and changing bandages and you're seeing your hands and your legs and how chewed up they are and you're just wondering you know like my face how bad is it you can feel around feel the swelling and you know my ear felt like it's crooked my one side of my face kind of

felt like it was all drooping and um and you can't feel a lot you know you're touching all over the place and you can't feel mass majority of your head the side of your face you can't move things that was kind of overwhelming you know and you see all that every day and you're like well what am I going to like, right? That was a big step to get over that. And then just the noises, there's an ice machine outside the, outside my room there. And every time somebody go get ice, you'd put me into a flashback, because I think the bear's sitting a tune on me. So that would, you know, put me out and just trying to understand, you know, that it's just the ice machine and not the bear. And it's quite a while to get over that and to be able to sleep. I mean, it was probably three and a half

years after the bear attack. I wasn't able to sleep more than a couple hours at a time, you know, up from a flashback. If it was a stressful day at work, you know, there'd be more nightmares at night. If we was watching a TV show and a bear came on, you know, seeing a bear on TV was fine,

but mentally later on, it caused nightmares and thinking that, you know, it's going to come and get me. All kinds of sounds. At the time, after the malling, I worked at a slaughterhouse,

and I remember walking down in our augur room and smelling blood for the first time. It put me into a flashback at work, and all the guys basically made a circle, I mean, kind of hugged, me and just kind of guided me through for about the 10 minutes until I came to again. And it just, you know, when I was waking up outside, crawling underneath the deck, because the

bear was chewing on me and I was trying to hide. You know, it just was years and years of struggling. The Krispy Chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful.

I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet. No. Krisby, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711.

Valley through 62326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. It sounds like you have a really good support system. That's helped you through it from between talking about your wife, your family, your doctors, your coworkers. It sounds like you have a really big support system. I did. I was very unfortunate that way.

And, you know, it all started, though, with me asking for it in the hospital. Because once we got the therapist involved, she was able to help guide my wife and then guide my friends into how to react in those situations and what to do. And then everybody was trained to do the exact same thing. You know, massage, his feet, squeeze his feet, tell him he's in a safe place. That way, it just helps get out of it and you're not as confused or lost. And so just starting at early stage, it really helped throughout the whole entire experience or trauma, I guess. Yeah. And I mean, like you said, it all began with you asking for her. help so soon after the incident, you know, pretty much immediately you recognize that that was something that you needed and would benefit from. And it kind of just mirrors your mental fortitude and your attitude that is prevalent throughout the entire book and something that people repeatedly comment on as far as between your doctors and the people you encountered the day of whether they're EMTs or

people in the helicopter or whatnot with just how great of an attitude you maintained throughout this entire experience, cracking jokes and keeping everything as light as possible in the worst case scenario. And it's just something that is so inspirational, even just to read, let alone be a part of. So I think it was one of your doctors, Dr. Nicholson, that said that he kind of just comments on that and how psychologically your attitude can really determine your outcome. And he points to you as a prime example of that. Well, yeah. And when you're in the hospital there, I was in there for five weeks and it probably should have been a lot longer, but I was probably thinking, you know, three months, couple months, two, three months for sure. And then maybe six months to a year before I was going

to get back to work. And if you just laid it in the hospital bed and didn't do anything, yeah, it would take them that long. But as soon as it could stand me up, I would get up and I'd get it on the walker and I'd walk around the unit and it used to take me to do one lap around the unit. I'd go right after Breffix and I'd do one lap and it'd be lunchtime. And then I'd do one lap and it'd be dinner time and I'd go to bed. So I'm doing that every single day. That's all I do. And the nurses are always jokes.

So, you know, what are you training for? And I'm like, I'm training for the polar bear, right? Just something to look forward to you. And by the time in the five weeks was in when I left the hospital, it'd take me 12 minutes to do a lap. And that's all I do all day long was do the loops. And once I was able to move around and get the blood flowing, I healed a lot quicker, a lot faster.

And that was part of the biggest part about it. And just having fun with the nurses, you know, they're there all day long. They're dealing with some very interesting and difficult people. I didn't want to be one of them. I didn't want them to wait a hand and foot. I wanted them to have fun. Like, it's work. You got to have fun at work.

Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, it's so good to have a good attitude. And there's that saying, like, you can't choose always what happens to you or change with happens to you, but what you can do is you can change how you react to it. And that's a prime example. Have fun when you're in the hospital. You have to be there. You might as well have a little bit of fun while you're there. That's right. And then with the whole with the at the lodge with the ladies there and the helicopter, my main concern at that point was to keep everybody calm. I was in a pretty rough shape and I wasn't sure I was going to survive. I just wanted the people there to be

calm and be able to make a clear decision. Because if they're all freaking out, they're going to make grass decisions, which would directly impact me and probably one of the things that would have killed me off. And I was just trying to keep everybody calm so they can make, you know, a good decision and figure out what to do. I mean, at points in the time I was thinking I should have just drove past and kept going because it probably had been better off. But, well, now that you bring that up, you did, you drove yourself out of, you got yourself off of the trail out of the woods and then you drove yourself. How, how are you able to drive? Just like out of curiosity.

Out of curiosity. You spoke about your vision and everything and obviously everything else. And this isn't just a routine road either. No, this is quite the road. You know, it's got a couple of serpentine turns in it. There's cliffs along the edge for quite a fair bit of it. And the guardrail is basically just cable stretched in between little metal poles shoved into the ground. You know, when I got to my truck, I hopped in the driver.

and I started it up, and I remember looking out the windshield, and I couldn't see the end of the hood. And then I rolled down the window, and I looked down, and I couldn't see the gravel. I'm like, oh, boy, like, how am we going to do this? And all I could see was just, it was, there's spruce trees and the other side of the road, and I can just see the dark green. And then there's a light spot. So I figured the light spot was the middle of the road, so I'm just going to aim for that. And as it was driving along, you feel all the bumps. And I was like, okay, well, I'm kind of riding in the ditch, so I need to go over a little bit more.

And I, you know, was probably swerving all over the road. And, you know, I wasn't even sure I was even on the road for most of it. I thought I was rubbing against the guardrail. And it took me, you know, about an hour to drive 22 kilometers. I don't know how I did it. We always joked about it because I driving there in the middle of the night that I could probably fall asleep in making and there no problem. And sure enough, I drove out of there literally blinded.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's when you showed up and you were, you drove to an area where you were able to find people how you were mentioning you wanted to keep calm and could help you get to a hospital. Mm-hmm. And I do have to ask just. I meant to ask earlier when you were describing picking pieces of your face off of the ground. Did you have any knowledge of backcountry medicine?

Because you do describe, you didn't just collect the pieces. You put them back on areas that had active blood supply and kind of fasten them there with some medical tape that, you know, you described finding later on. But did you have, was that just another kind of like reactive, impulsive decision? Or did you have knowledge that that would increase the likelihood that that would be viable tissue for surgery later? I think yes and no. I had a little bit of experience, you know, doing first aid courses and outdoor survival.

I just kind of took it like your tooth. If you knock your tooth, though, you're supposed to put it in milk because it'll help keep it along. I just remember that as a kid, so I figured, you know, you want to put blood to blood and maybe keep it alive. And then I just tried to do that to keep it clean and more just put it on. Yeah, I wouldn't say that I had lots of experience at that. I just figured that's probably the best thing to do. And then to wrap it up and tie a knot, my jaw was hanging down and kind of hanging there.

And that was bugging me and it just wouldn't stay in place. So when I tied the knot and any of my chin, it was more to hold my chin up. So it didn't flop around when I was walking because I would hurt. Yeah. And then with the medical tape later on, I just remember how we used to tape up our legs for football. And I was like, well, I'm just going to do that because my leg doesn't quite bend. Maybe this will help give it some strength. And yeah.

And it worked out. It's just amazing. It really is. Like all these little decisions that you made in such a hectic situation is just, it's incredible when you lay it out on paper and really read through it. And you do mention a lot the importance of setting little goals for yourself, whether it was on your trek out at the hospital, just different little milestones to achieve just can make all the difference in getting to a final goal.

And you attribute a lot of your success in survival and recovery based on that setting. small goals. So is that something you still utilize today? I still do. And with the small goals at the time of the bareball, if I would have focused on making it to my truck, I would have never made it because I'm like, oh, that's too far. I got to climb over this hill. I got to go across this creek through this drainage. I would have never had made it because that's a huge, a huge undertaking. And when I set those little many goals, I'm going to make it to that rock. You know, and once you, once I got to that rock, it kind of built up some momentum. Oh, I made it that rock, I can make it to the next one. And as those go along, as I accomplished those, it built up

more and more momentum. And that momentum erased the powerlessness at the moment. It made me see past the gore at the time and the reality. So it helped. Even though the whole entire way, I did not know I was going to make it out of there until I reached the two rocks to talk about it on the hillside, I was the only point in time when I knew I was going to make it to the truck. But before that, I didn't know I was ever going to make it. And so I just wanted to make it somewhere where they're going to find the body sooner so my wife didn't have to worry about what happened to me she would know right away and then at the hospital it was more of yeah just you know we'll do one more lap that's all i need to do and just keep working at and keep working i wasn't going to think about you know i want to get out of here

run a marathon no i just want to do one more lap today and tomorrow i'm going to do an extra half a lap and just trying to break it down a small little chunks so when you achieve those it feels you feel good it's a good feeling absolutely i mean and it's something that you can kind of put towards anything in life you know, not just surviving a grizzly attack, which it came in handy. Yeah, for sure. But you can totally, you can add those to daily things, just small goals to build up to a bigger goal. And you mentioned, you've mentioned your wife quite a bit in this episode so far. And she's in your book as well. There's a lot of excerpts of journal entries that she put in there and just her perspective on what was happening during all this time. And it

sounds like she's been a huge support for you. How has your relationship changed or anything since the attack? It's changed quite a bit. We much more supportive of each other. Now I'm on a short lease when it comes to hunting out in the bush where there's anything with bears. I can imagine. We got lots of rules now.

I can carry an in-reach unit with me with a heartbeat monitor so she can track me and make sure that, you know, I'm still kicking and always have somebody with me that's, you know, slower so I can push them down to get away. That's the tactic. And, you know, we have a lot more rules when it comes to that. And I got, you know, two small kids now, and I kind of want to be around for them for later on. So I've slowed down quite a bit and don't take as many chances as I used to and try to stay away from those dangerous situations. Has your preparedness changed at all?

I know that you mentioned, obviously, you had a firearm and your bear spray that you in the moment just kind of threw in your bag. And I think we can all relate to that. I know I certainly can. You know, I have bear spray, but is it on me in reach? No. I used to have it at the bottom of my backpack. And now I put it on the side because, but many times I've put it at the bottom of my backpack. And one day someone was like, hey, what are you going to do if that's at the bottom of your bag?

And I'm like, that's a great point. That's a great point. So. Yeah. So other than, I know you just mentioned you have like a Garmin in reach now and things like that. But is there anything specifically you do? wildly different. Yes, definitely if I'm going anywhere where there's bears or remote chance of bears, if I'm with somebody or not, I always have a bear spray in my chest. And if I'm

with somebody, we do a little safety course on bear spray, how to use it, things to look out for. So I carry a couple extra cans of non-lethal bear spray, like practice stuff. And what we'll do is do like a little 10-minute thing. We'll get out of the truck. And no matter how many times I've done it with them, we do it every single time. Like this is how you use it. I keep mine on my chest, you know, and we'll walk through, we'll do a little, a little, you know, two-minute walk, and we'll pick out a stump as a bear, and one of us will be first, the other guy would be second, and, oh, there's a bear there, what do you do? The guy who spots the bear, would, you know, watch the bear, pull out his bear spray. The guy behind would grab the other guy by, say, the cuff of the

neck or something, and guide him through the woods as the person who sees the bear is just watching, making sure it doesn't, you know, charge and whatnot, and just talk to each other and do a couple scenarios and make sure you can spray the bear spray and then off we go. So, so, me and my wife to that every time. When I'm by myself, I have gone once by myself in bear country. The wife wasn't happy about it, but she agreed that it was okay for this one area I was going in. I went to the same scenario in my head, you know, got out, check it, make sure everything was good. And just thinking about, you know, if there's a bear over there, what do I do, react, where would I go, how would I get out? And I make sure it's always on my chest. Now, ready to,

to go. And I practice too. Like I practice popping out of the holster or popping the safety off on it when I'm walking around. Click, just checking just to make sure. I just say I love that you found ways to be more prepared and that you're like actively training to be prepared for a situation, but that you're still going outside. That even despite all this, you're still going into the outdoors. You're still doing things that you love to do. You can't needlessly abandon your passions because of one little tragic incident. Absolutely. That's another one of my lessons, I think.

Yeah, it is. It is. And that's a great way to kind of finish this up because at the end of your book, you have, you know, a few different lessons, bullet point lessons that you took away from this experience. And you kind of close it all out with highlighting the importance of cherishing family and different relationships and your life passions. And I just have to ask, how has this encounter with death changed your life? in the way you live it.

Well, like I said earlier about family, I want to stick around and be around from them. That was one of the biggest things that got me out of there. Because right after the emoling, the malling was the easiest part. I'm going to say, you know, fighting the bear off was the easiest part of the whole entire journey. The PTSD was the worst. But the other part that was really hard was when I thought everything, when I lost hope.

And, you know, the first time to feed away from the attack said, I fell down a rocky drainage. And I given up. And I remember laying there in the bottom. I pulled up my phone and I messaged my wife that I let her know that I tried because this was, this was the end for me. And it wasn't for me turning on my music and listening to my daughter's favorite nursery rhyme at the time. I think I still would have been laying there today. Like, I don't think I would have ever made it out. And that that power of family really, really helped me in that

situation, really got me to where I'm at today was one of the biggest things, you know, family matters. That's beautiful. And it's so true because I think, and you do mention it a little bit as well in your book, that, you know, through day-to-day life, those things can kind of take the back burner as far as, you know, putting time and effort and real attention into your most important relationships because you take them for granted or they're just always there and there's other things going on. But there's really nothing more important than them. And sometimes it takes an experience like this to really highlight that. Yes.

When you're in that kind of situation, you really start to understand it and what family means. And it's really hard to, how do I put this? at the time of the mountainside sitting there trying to make making the decision, what do I do? It's really hard to say goodbye to the ones you love and you really start to see how important there are and it's, there's so many things you want to say, but how do you say it in such a short note message, right? That's when you really start knowing how important they are. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your entire journey. I mean, your survival is very inspirational and not just your story of how you actually got out of the situation you were in with the grizzly bear.

but everything after too. I mean, everything from recovering to healing physically and emotionally and getting to this point where you're so passionate about being with your family and having them as such a drive. I mean, your entire story is really inspirational. And I think your book is very inspirational. The way it's written is wonderful. And you just want to say, like, thank you for writing the book because we were really inspired by reading it.

And thank you for coming on here and talking to us because we're inspired listening to you. And I know that people listening to this podcast are also going to be inspired. Thank you. That's one of the things that I didn't at first I didn't really want to write a book because I wasn't sure who would want to read about a guy getting mulled by bear and crawling out. But after talking with Crosby and we kind of wrote it all down and made a little map, he says, well, no, some of the things you did here would really help people out? And then when he got to the PTSD side, just letting know that there's help out there.

and it's okay to talk about it. It was one of the biggest things that I really noticed in the last couple months here, how many people have come to me who have been involved by a bear or been in another tragic incident doing something that they love and haven't got help for it. Now they are seeking help because you can get better and you can get back to what you want to do. Yeah.

And I think previously, especially like several years ago, mental health issues have always been something that people shy away from talking about and kind of put in the back burner. and now when people like yourself are talking about it, it creates an environment and a space where other people who are dealing with the same thing can feel comfortable and can all come together and be like, hey, we're all dealing with this. There's help. Like, let's share our stories. Let's get everyone to want to talk about this and be open about it so we can all help each other heal.

And I think it's just, I think it's wonderful that you put it in a book and that you're talking. I know you've been on other podcasts too. I think it's just like wonderful that you're sharing this message for everyone to hear. Well, just because you're a big burly guy doesn't necessarily mean that you don't need any help. In order to look after your family, you've got to be mentally stable in order to actually look after your family. That's one of the biggest things is get yourself fixed up so you can actually help others. 100%. It's like when you're on an airplane, they always say like put your mask on first before you can help someone else. And it's same thing with everything in life. You have to take care of yourself if you want to be able to help other people that you care about. Definitely. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for the conversation and opening up and. like Cassie said, not only writing the book, but coming talking to us, other people, despite how difficult your journey has been and continues to be to put that, you know,

kind of take that in stride and still push on. It's just it's helpful to others. And I'm sure that everyone has gotten a lot out of this and are psyched to read your book now. And kind of put, you know, a voice to the subject in the story. And we just really want to say thank you again for coming. coming on. Thank you for having me. Of course. Before we finish up to your book, Mald Lessons Learned from a Grizzly Bear Attack, and it's by Crosby Cotton and you, Jeremy Evans. Where can people buy this book? So you can pick up with a book on Amazon at your local bookstore, Indigo Chapters. You can also get in

on my webpage too, which is grizzlydo.ca. And yeah, if you order from grizzlydo.com, you get a signed copy from me. But anywhere else, yeah, Amazon Indigo Chapter. local bookstore. Perfect. We'll add those links into our show description so everyone can get to them quickly as well. And then also too, I've started getting into motivational speaking. What my goal is to do is to help raise money for research for PTSD for people who have been through similar situations and they want to raise money to be able to help more people out. We're getting more into the motivational speaking side and doing talks with companies and ladies sportsmen show small bookstores doing a little blurb here and there and trying to get the name out there

and letting know people that there is help. Amazing. How can we and everyone listening, how can we support you in your journey to create more funds for PTSD? So you can reach out to me on my webpage at the grizzly-dood.ca on there. If you're interested in setting up a motivational speaking engagement, you can do on there. Also, there's some merchandise shirts and hats. So we're just working on signing up with the university right now to raise money to get a chair position where that money will get invested and will run a department to do research for PTSD. So we're just working on getting all that straight note. And yeah, hopefully you have that rolling up here pretty quick.

That's amazing. Yeah, you'll have to keep us updated on how all of that turns out. Are you just sticking to Canada for now as far as speaking engagements or just wherever the road takes you? Kind of wherever the road takes me. I just got finished doing three. shows in Red Deer, and it was at a sportsman show. The first one was over 150 people showed up. Day two, the whole room was just jam packed, probably well over 500 people were in there.

There was only 15 minutes. It was quite the, it was actually pretty overwhelming, see how many people in there in the room, you could hear a pin drop. So from there, doing some dinners, for some charity events for raising for hunters with disability, and then for underprivileged kids. help raising money in awareness. It's just slowly working my way up. Well, those are all very beautiful causes. And you'll have to keep us updated if you're in the Vermont or Colorado area. So we can, that's where we're located.

Help them to make a trip down there. There you go. Yes, please. And we'll add all of your links into our show description so everybody listening can head right over there and find all of these information as well. Awesome. Thank you. Awesome.

Well, once again, thank you, Jeremy. No problem. Thank you so much for being here. So everyone, go out. Go grab Jeremy's book. You can find it online. All the sources he added will have the links in our show notes. The book is called Mald Lessons Learned from a Grizzly Bear Attack by Crosby Cotton and Jeremy Evans.

It is a wonderful book. Check it out. Go to the links in the show notes. But that's everything that we have for today. So in the meantime, please enjoy the view. But please watch your back. Bye, everyone. Bye.

Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion, send us an email at Stories at npadpodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Join our outsiders-only community on Patreon or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For more information on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more, visit our website at npaddpodcast.com.

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