The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 553: EXCLUSIVE - The Otter Mauling Victims Speak Out

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

In this exclusive interview, Steven Rinella talks with otter mauling victims, Jennifer Royce, Stephanie Johnson, and Leila Pavolich. Janis Putelis and Spencer Neuharth join. Topics discussed: FTO and missing half your ear; the frequency of otter attacks over time; donate to the Bob Patten Endowment for the Kent State University Experimental Archaeology Laboratory so you can see more bison butchery experiments with Clovis points; the bison skull with a bullet hole at the MeatEater flagship store in Bozeman, MT;  Jani’s "Unga Bunga Test"; our interview with the American hunters facing potential prison time in Turks and Caicos; different views on Governor tags; finding a husband for Stephanie; floating on inner tubes down the Jefferson River; when otters were your favorite animal; doing a body roll; the importance of dry bags; just how thankful you are when SOS works on your phone; the landowner and the trooper to the rescue; hundreds of stitches; lingering emotional trauma; having a sense of humor about it as a way to help heal; strapping on the dive knife for next time; and more.  Connect with Steve, MeatEater, and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. Spencer, the other night when we were on our live tour, do you remember what you asked me one night about podcast guests? I asked you who your white whale is.

Yeah. And I said the wrong answer. Okay. I said Hank Williams Jr. I was wrong. Okay. It's these three ladies sitting right here next to you. Oh, good.

Yeah. Hold on. Can you explain the Hank Williams Jr. thing? I mean, that's pretty cool. Well, there's a person that I want to have come on the podcast, but he won't come on the podcast. It kills me. Which is him? Hank Williams Jr.

Because he's always turkey hunting. Oh, I just didn't know that you had interest in him. Oh, yeah. Big time. He fell off a mountain in Montana in the 70s. That's why he grew his hair out and wears the sunglasses. Scarred his face all up. And why won't he come join us? Always has some...

Well, not always. I mean, turkey hunting, whatever. I don't know. He's busy. Kills me. But we're right. We're doing this Atlas of the American Sportsman right now. And in it, we talk about sort of like where the greatest outdoor songs ever came from. And, of course, Country Boy Can't Survive is in that list. But anyways, I was lying.

It's these three ladies right here. Join today. Now, we've talked about you guys before. We had an episode. We kind, I was lying. It's these three ladies right here. Join today. Now, we've talked about you guys before. We had an episode. We kind of blew the title. We used it too early. We had a title mauled by an otter, didn't we? Oh, crap. Like, we already used it up.

Didn't we call it that? What did we call it? I think we can come up with something clever again. Joined today by Jennifer Royce royce stephanie johnson and leila leila pavlich leila pavlich um who you guys became international celebrities yeah last summer forgetting forgetting mauled by an otter yeah we think there might have been two two otters. Hospitalized in a otter mauling. Yeah. Jen lost an ear. Part of it, yeah.

Can you show everybody the ear? Oh, it's covered up in my... Like lost a good chunk of the ear. I realized I kind of oversold it the other day when I was telling Yanni about how much your ear was gone. I feel like it, yeah. No, it's gone. I mean, a lot of it's missing.

Yeah, a lot. I told Yanni all the parts that kind of hang out are gone, but that's not true. Top part's still there. I can still wear my earrings. It's cool. Hell yeah. 20%, right? The doctors probably said. What percent of it? You lost 30% of your ear.

No, I think I lost like 50%. Yeah, I would say at least 40 or 50. And you got scars all over your face. Yes, sir. You got a tattoo that says FTC, which is an acronym. FTO, Steve. We're here to talk about otters. Oh, sorry.

FTO, which is like... Fuck the otters. Not fight the otters. No, it's fuck the otters. Not fish the otters. No. It's one the otters. Not fish the otters. No. It's one of the three F's. And that's the bleep bleep bleep. We're going to tell

this whole story, but you have a sense of humor about it now. Well, yeah. That's what struck me when I met you. Why be upset about it? I have to deal with it for the rest of my life. You're not going to put that otter back in a box? I've never seen it again it i mean i had a really good run at it last time so i my money is on me the next time i see that thing in the water

um and you guys were all tubing together yep just you three yep nine months ago was it august yeah august 2nd okay we're gonna tell this whole it's a crazy we're gonna tell this whole story um and we when i say we touched on it before is we had a we had a montana game warden adam pancratz on and we were talking about human wildlife interactions um how obviously moose attack yeah a lot of moose attacks a lot of grizz attacks, but he was sharing that it wasn't unheard of to be attacked by an otter. So, Corinne has here a little sleuthing. We talked about the IUCN recently. That bobcats are species of least concern, according to the IUCN.

And the IUCN had an otter specialist group. Okay? And they were able to find 20, like, please don't, I'm not trying to make otter hysteria here. 20 otter attacks worldwide from 2011

to 2021. Are you guys familiar with the giant river otter in South America? Yes. That sucker would have given you a run for your money. If you go down there, I'm going with you. Actually, maybe not. Those things are scary. I've seen those. Those are crazy. You'd have zero ears. Yeah. I'm not here to talk to you if I'm

in the river with one of those. Yeah, no. You'd have zero ears. What were those giant river otters doing when you saw them? Yeah. Good question. On the riverbank? Chilling? Yeah, but I mean, they're 100 pounds, 75, 80 pounds. I mean, they're huge. They're crazy. They're like this.

And they got kind of a longer leg. They're a little more leggy. They like those little squat little, they got kind of like a more of a. They look like a seal with legs, like those things. Oh, their body. Scary. Yeah, you don't like those guys. Nightmares are made out of those.

Nope. A previous review from 2011 counted 39, this is according to the IUCN, International Union Conservation, come on, Spencer. I was going to ask what it stood for. International Union Conservation. International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Them fellers. Okay, where did I have my notes? Okay, I already said that. A previous review from 2011, so a decade earlier, counted 39 reports of violent human-otter interactions between

1875 and 2010. I think there you're looking at what got reported and not. Now, Crenn also goes on to say that an actress from the TV show Succession was attacked by a river otter last July in California. Her character or the actress? And her private life. How bad? It wasn't.

She didn't lose an ear. I'll tell you that. No, you'd have heard about that. Yeah. That was a pun almost. Exactly. If I had another five minutes, I would have built that into a pun.

I didn't hear about that. Okay, we're going to dig in big time with you guys in a minute, but first we've got to do a couple things. There's a podcast guest we have on all the time, Meton Aaron. Now, Meton Aaron is with the Kent State University Experimental Archaeology Laboratory. He's been on the show talking about Clovis points and Folsom points, Ice Age projectiles. It was with Matt and Aaron that we did the project

where we butchered the bison using stone points. And, of course, you can go watch all about that on YouTube. You can read about it on our website. But he is, so if you're familiar with his work and his appearances on the show, oh, wow, this really touches a handful of worlds, Stephanie. You're going to appreciate this. I'm nervous. No, it's not about your search for the Mr. Perfect.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, cool. So my work life? Okay, let's hit it. It's your work life. Oh my gosh. Okay, cool. So my work life? Okay, let's hit it. It's your work life. Listen to what he has to say. This fella, Matt and Erin, I'm talking about. We are trying to build the Bob Patton Endowment for the Kent State University Experimental

Archaeology Laboratory to fund experimental archaeology students and research. That's awesome. Now, here's where you're going to perk right up. Okay. We waste an inordinate amount of time writing grant proposals. Wow. Good Lord. Yeah.

Tell them what you do for a living. I sell software for grant makers and grant seekers. In fact, I think you just might have got a raise at your work. I hope so. Foundant Technologies. Foundant Technologies. So here I'm trying to help Metten out, but I just helped him out because he could just call Stephanie at...

Foundant Technologies. Foundant? Foundant Technologies. If you're a grant writer, or if you're a grant writer Or if you're a grant How do you put it? Grant maker or grant seeker If you're a grant maker Or a grant seeker

Stephanie has just what you need She's also single And if you're between Where did we land? I think we said 35 to 52 If you're between 35 and 52. Yep. Nice.

Wealthy. Uh-huh. Tall. Tall. How tall? Like 5'11 plus? Yeah. That's good.

Yeah. Give her a shout. Or if you just need some grant writing software metton is men single or does no the criteria i think metton's married oh shoot i don't know he's probably he fits all the yeah the criteria great we as he goes on to say so back to this important issue. This is serious. So they're trying to build,

yeah, okay, Metten. We're trying to build the Bob Patton Endowment for the Kent State University Experimental Archaeology Laboratory to fund experimental archaeology students and research. We waste an inordinate amount of time

writing grant proposals, so all of the lab's success has been with one hand tied behind its back. We want to spend all of our time on what matters, making experimental discoveries about ancient hunting and survival and helping students with those interests. A permanent research endowment will allow us to achieve that goal. Then it says, click here to donate.

So Corinne will install in the show notes. If you'd like to support their work, if you or your company is interested in contributing a tax-deductible donation to the Bob Patton Endowed Fund, please contribute and click the support the experimental archaeology laboratory link. Corinne will include this in the show notes. Hey, is that Buffalo right there, the hole in its skull?

Is that the one from that project? Can you see that in the camera, Phil? That's the Buffalo from the experiment. If you come to the Meteor store, we're recording in our store. We're recording in our flagship store in Bozeman. If you can come, you can poke your finger right in that hole. I didn't know that was the buffalo. Yeah, that's him.

You can stick your finger right in that hole. I'm going to after this episode. Can you see the bullets path of travel on the back side? Yeah, I know. It keeps going. Yeah, I can see right through the wall. I'm going to make a little sign that says, stick your finger here. It'd be like, you know those things where you get behind and it's like a hit.

Remember at Mount Yanni, we were down in Arizona and there's that old thing where you look like old settlers, but you stick your face in there and it takes a picture of you like an old settler. It could be a thing where you come from all over the world and get a picture of yourself with your finger in that hole. That's not where I thought you were going with that. Most taxidermy, they don't want you to touch, but Steve's encouraging you. They're going to make a sign that says,

put your finger in this hole. Right next to it is my dad's bowl from one of people's fan favorites episodes of Meat Eater ever. Yeah, everything's down here. That's the Sika deer from the Sika deer episodes we made. That's all the stuff.

On the subject of experimental archaeology. Hey, we're going to get to otters. No worries. Okay. Have you guys ever listened to this show before? No. I've seen your Netflix show.

I wasn't trying to catch it. There's a thing I talk about on the show a fair bit, which is a thing that I've been interested in is the ascendancy of the stature of the Neanderthal through time. So when you were a little kid, what was your image of them?

Monkeys. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm like. Like that they would like, you know, had a club. Yeah, kind of just grew. Yeah, and then now it's like, oh, they kind of had art. Oh, they made jewelry. And oh, you oh, they kind of had art. Oh, they made jewelry. And oh, it's just our understanding of them has changed a lot.

And people also have this idea of Neanderthals as being somehow like a failure because they went extinct. But we now understand that they interbred with humans, so they kind of were, they didn't vanish. They were sort of absorbed into an incoming population. And also they had a, they spent 600,000 years in Europe. Right?

Hugely successful group of people. And so all this research keeps coming out as we kind of understand them better. And there's this research keeps coming out as we kind of understand them better. And there's this paper out right now where they found this kill site that had it wound up having, how many

how many wooden tools came out of this bog? Anyways. Sorry, I didn't read this one. Two dozen. complete or fragmented spears I'm just going to act like I'm lecturing

you guys I'm delivering like a lecture you're familiar with the term stone age? yes stone lasts a long time everything else rots away so if you come and make a bunch of stuff, and then 50,000, 100,000 years go by,

you'd show up and you'd dig up, and you'd be like, oh, they got a bunch of stuff out of stone, but all the other junk is gone. In this case, they're looking at all this Neanderthal woodwork out of this site where a couple dozen spear shafts and throwing sticks came from,

and it's talking about, huh, turns out they were pretty crafty at woodwork, selecting very appropriate wood for purpose, fire-hardening wood, carving, shaping, lathing wood. Just another touch point. It's like what you got on the wall over here. Yes. Another touch point in the ascendancy of the Neanderthal from being like a guy with a club going Oonga Boonga to,

or whatever it was they said to these like fairly sophisticated people who made art and had a very diet. And then in some cases they think that Neanderthals were actually divers because they see strong evidence of swimmers here in the skeletons, which is a bone growth you get from regular exposure to cold water. So they feel like they were scallop divers. They weren't just frolicking in the waves surfing seals evidence i used to have a unga bunga test this is a little bit off

topic but when uh before i got married i was dating and if i got far enough in the relationship or far enough in dating that i would go camping i would have an unga bunga test which involved like collecting firewood you know oftentimes you're getting big chunks of wood and maybe you do or don't have an ax or a saw with you and you just need to break it. And I would assign that task to, you know, the prospective lady and then see how she would handle the situation. And I called it the Oonga Bo bunga test stephanie how would you handle something like that this is now this is going to become an issue for you i know i don't know that i would handle it well i'd probably just try to run over it with a vehicle hey that's a smart way to go about it that'd look badass can i give you another one

i'd be like i'd be like i like this girl. You find two trees growing like this. You take the stick and go like this and then grab here and go. So smart. Very smart. Yeah. Or just pick up the whole thing and just slam it on the ground. Run it over and shoot it with a pistol. Did your wife have to take this test?

How'd that go? She would have zero problem. That's awesome. What's the latest on the guys stuck in Turks and Caicos? Are they still waiting? Holy cow. We did a special episode drop the other day where we interviewed two individuals, so two Americans

wound up in prison in Turks and Caicos, like bizarrely similar situations on a very tight timeline. Then there became a third of people who went to vacation in Turks and Caicos and had like some of their hunting, like a duffel bag that they use hunting and

had a stray round of ammunition. Okay? And then now are imprisoned facing a potential of 12, a minimum sentence of 12 years in prison for breaking their gun laws, even though they had a hunting rifle or not a hunting, a round of ammo with no gun in which to shoot it. In both cases, they were found leaving Turks and Caicos with it. Not coming in. They got in. They got through American TSA. They got through Turks and Caicos customs.

Are there for a week of vacation. Are coming home and on the way home are found to be in violation of a gun law. No gun to shoot it. This prompted this interview with these two gentlemen prompted a guy to write in from Australia and he's a professional hunter. He does. He's a wildlife control agent. Okay.

Private, not agent, a private wildlife control agent. Private, not agent. A private wildlife control professional. He's in Melbourne. He's pointing out we have very strict gun laws in Australia. He's in Melbourne and an x-ray of his backpack turns up a.308 round. The security guys get real excited. Tommy's probably going to be in a bunch of trouble. And in this case, check this out.

The round had found its way between the inner and outer lining of a pocket in his backpack. They had to cut the bag to get the round out. Eventually, though, a guy, he goes through sort of the ranks of people here. He has an occupation as a professional shooter. He eventually gets to an officer who points out, you got to feel like a real idiot,

and then says, you don't have a gun for this anyways with you, so the round is kind of useless to you. And he was able to just hand over the round of ammunition and go about his business. So there's that. Man, I want to talk about the full metal jacket deal. We'll talk about it later. Who crossed off Kristi Noem's hunting dogs?

How aware of you of this situation? Not at all. When I say Kristi Noem, does anything come to mind? Nope. Governor of South Dakota. Okay. I'm glad you guys

don't have anything to do about this. The only reason I found out is because I happened to be in a hotel room late at night on Saturday and Saturday Night Live cracked a joke about it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known either. The governor of South Dakota was for a while widely, there's widespread speculation that she

was on the very short list of potential Trump VP picks. I did hear that. She has an autobiography as one who's angling for that level of political involvement would do. She comes out with an autobiography. In the autobiography, she talks about having a bird dog when she was a teenager, having a bird dog that couldn't be trained and they kept trying to bite people. So they put the dog down.

Okay. The whole world has a shit fit about this. I point out that that's not upsetting to me. And not only that, I don't think that that would disqualify someone from political involvement. I don't think so either would disqualify someone from political involvement. I don't think so either. She wasn't a teenager.

She had a daughter at that point. That's what I meant. I meant that. I don't know if the daughter was a teenager. She had to explain to her daughter where cricket went. She wasn't a teen. Wait, wait, wait. But isn't this the story that she went out and shot the dog?

She went out and shot the dog. Okay. Did you hear about the dog named Commander? Yes. That that dog has drawn blood on how many? Yes. Biden's dog? Mm-hmm.

Drew blood on so many Secret Service agents that the dog got 86 from the White House. And now it's MIA. But it didn't go to just... I do not think... It didn't go to a farm in rural Montana. I don't think Biden took it out to the gravel quarry. I don't think so either. He's like, let me borrow one of them guns.

So anyway, someone wrote in to Spencer that if I don't say I was being sarcastic about every word I said, he will never listen to or watch anything this company puts out ever again. And how much sleep did you lose over that comment? Well, I don't remember what all I said. And I think I made some jokes because I was with a bunch of dog owners. And I made some jokes about bad dogs. I was being like 70% sarcastic. 30.

But I can't say every word I said because there's 30% that wasn't sarcastic. He lost enough sleep that he forwarded the email to Corinne, which I was surprised by. Oh. I wasn't losing sleep. it just kind of got me it made me wonder what exactly i said because i was mostly teasing guys with dogs who were there in the room but i also said i don't think that would make it not eligible for politics primarily because that would mean that everyone i grew up with would be ineligible for politics. Well, I mean, considering I grew up in Texas and there's all kinds of farms and farmland and that's what you do.

I mean, you know, if an animal is not well or I don't know how I'd feel about the situation with this dog, but you put them down to put them out of their misery. You know what my buddy Doug Duren calls it? You don't need to know who that is. Okay. with this dog but you you put them down to put them out of their misery so you know my dog during my buddy doug duran calls it you don't need to know who that is okay and he doesn't he's outside of your my range he's out he's on the top of your range anyways taller than shit oh really but uh when my kids are out there and stuff on his farm and things will happen and he says kids that's life and death on the farm.

Yeah, that's true. I also think it's okay, Steve, if you didn't grow up with anybody who's worthy of being the vice president. I can't think of a lot of folks that I grew up with and I'm like, yeah, that person should be second in America. I like to think that everyone I grew up with should be vice president. No, I'm joking.

I just don't think that that should knock you out of running. And I think in fact, I bet you, in fact, in fact, if you're an American patriot, and I am, what is it that you love? It has to be that you love. The source of your love needs to wind up being, it's like the landscape, sure, but there's like a thing.

The source of your love would need to wind up being like a thing you can point to. And I would argue that it's the Constitution of the Bill of Rights. That's like the, right? That's the foundation of it.

You know? I just bet you a lot of those fellers had that happen to them. The dogs went hunting. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

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Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Governor's tags. I'm going to talk about this. This is the last thing we're going to talk about. It's okay.

A really good letter came in from Ben Long, the writer Ben Long. I was saying in all of the areas of wildlife politics that I can't form an opinion on, it's having an opinion on governor's tags. I see both sides of the argument so clearly. If you somehow have missed this conversation, I'll try to make it quick and painless for you. There's a way that states raise money for wildlife habitat work and wildlife work is they will take hard to draw tags and they'll take, oftentimes a state will take one tag for every hard to draw species. The ones that get the most attention are tags for desert bighorns, Rocky Mountain bighorns. And they give most of the tags out through a lottery system.

But they'll take one tag and give it some special rules, okay, and they'll auction it. When I say special rules, I mean that when you draw a bighorn tag, I don't care any state in the West, when you draw a bighorn tag, you're applying for a specific unit. And that unit could be, I mean, that unit could be 50 square miles right well when you buy a governor's and it's within a season

and within a season so it'll be okay your season is I'm just pulling this random out of thin air your season is September 15th to November 29th and you have to hunt the Yanni Pretelis unit

and that's 40 square miles. I just named a unit after you. A governor's tag, they'll kind of sweeten the pot. They'll be like, okay, you can have 365 days. That's your season and you can hunt any

unit that's open for any harvest of bighorns. And they'll auction that sucker off. And it used to, I remember it being like, oh my God, a governor's tag went for $250,000. And then it was, oh my God, a governor's tag went for $500,000. Then it was a governor's tag went for, it's pushing seven now for some governor's

tags and they'll have these for various species it's saying six hundred thousand okay seven hundred thousand was a record-breaking price a few years ago okay uh they've always been controversial because it by we have this principle in our wildlife management system that our wildlife resources are allocated democratically. That's why you have lottery. That's what we're looking for. Tag draws. 20, 30 bucks, whatever, if you're a resident of a state. A few hundred if you're not a resident.

You put in, you join in, and they give it out through a lottery system. And that's democratically allocated, meaning it's not free, but it's achievable for most. Everybody has the same odds of getting it. Well, but you do have to add in that little, the fact is, that like say in colorado which has one of the highest populations of sheep okay there's still only roughly 200 ram tags i think in the whole state and the demand out outweighs the the available tags by far and so there are people that will apply their whole entire lives and will not draw you know that's a good thing to point out. What drives this is a scarcity of opportunity. Yeah, and resources. If you're in Wisconsin,

no one's going to buy a governor's tag for white-tailed deer. I'll just buy it at the gas station. But these are things that you can't get and like you said with Colorado. I've been applying for a sheep tag in Montana since 1997. Every year. I have not drawn one. How many years is that? Good Lord.

30. 27. So then some guy comes in, you know, Johnny Big Bucks comes in and he buys it and people get pissed. I'm torn on it though because it raises so much money for Habitat. They're really careful about that money. When they sell a governor's tag, I don't know what it is, 90 some percent is put on the ground. I lost track.

What the hell state we're even talking about? Who just voted to get rid of governor's tags? Oh, Arizona. Arizona. Okay. Arizona's game commission just voted four to one, I believe. So overwhelmingly to ditch governor's tags. Clay and I, we had a podcast while we were on the road on our live tour and i

explained all the pros and cons the writer ben long writes and i'm just going to read his whole damn letter because it's such a good letter you and clay had an interesting conversation about the pros and cons of governors and landowner tags and other privileges that go to the highest bidder, or those with means. Like you, I'm torn on the topic. Hard to argue with cold cash. Ben continues. But here's another consideration. The credibility of the system. The North American model works because it's a social norm. We put up with our individual inconveniences because we believe it serves the greater good for the greater number

and we'll get our payback down the road in terms of opportunity. It's the basic premise of democracy. But today in America, there is a growing feeling we are stuck in a two-tier system. When I was a kid, you could not pay extra to skip lines at Disneyland,

Phil, or at the airport. We were all in it together. Today, there's a growing sense that the rich get a different kind of justice and taxes because they can afford better lawyers and CPAs and can hire lobbyists to write the laws. Similar with who pays the ultimate costs in our wars or who gets arrested by police. There is a growing sense that while the bulk of us are allowed to vote, moneyed elites buy more influence with campaign contributions.

In essence, more and more folks think the game is rigged. When enough people believe that, people flaunt the rules in democracy and conservation falls apart. So if we can raise similar amounts of money for conservation without playing favorites with any class of folks, it may be the better path forward. Now, if you're a way-ass pro governor's tag person, write an email like that. I'll read that sucker. So Ben swayed you. No. No.

I'm still torn. All right. I appreciate a well-written letter. Yeah. We should start having, on this show, you know what would be fun? Is if we had a letter write-off contest. Steve's essay contest. Yeah.

Keep it tight. Give a word limit. Like Kristi Noem's dog. Pro, con. And we'll read them. It's like an essay contest. And then we'll send the winner a present. Oh, I love it.

Send the winner a present. And we'll announce, okay, right now, this is the inaugural one. The essay contest. How many words is that? Corinne? I will put this in a word count. Do you mind? Okay.

Hitting it. So roughly how long? I'd say like 200. I'm going to say 201. That's 265. Maybe go a little less. 250. Someone's got to screen all these things.

Okay, 200-word essay. There you go. Send it to Corinne. What email address do you like all this to go to, Corinne? Corinne is somebody. The Meat Eater Podcast at themeateater.com. And it'll say essay contest,OM and it'll be the best essay saying

why that's I'll write that one why I feel that would be a justifiable scenario I'm not going to actually write it and then someone write one why that should disqualify someone for American politics 200 words 200 words

she'll send feedback. Two of them, you throw it out. She'll send feedback on all of them. Yeah, that with everything else you do. She'll work with you on your edits. No, no, no, no. There should be no editing in an essay contest. No, no one edited. Did you edit Ben's?

Ooh. He's a professional writer. I I want to hear the whole story I haven't heard the whole story now I met I met Jen and I met Jen and someone I believe came up and introduced you to me as the ot as the river otter lady. I introduced myself to you as the otter lady. And I begged you to come on the show. Yes. And you initially were resistant to it. Yes.

But I begged you more and then I followed up with an email. You emailed me the very next morning. I woke up first thing in the morning. I was shocked. I thought, oh, he's just being nice. And then I got an email. I couldn't sleep all night. I woke up first thing in the morning. I was shocked. I thought, oh, he's just being nice. And then I got an email. I couldn't sleep all night. I woke up first thing in the morning.

Couldn't sleep all night. Did you decide the day before you were going to send an email the next morning? Well, what happened was. I think his wife did. My lovely wife got your contact because she knew how much it meant to me. And then shared your contact with me. And I woke up in the morning and composed an email. oh we got it too okay okay so let's walk through let's let's walk through the otter tech you guys are hold on hold on this is like a hard leap here like i want to know if

steve's well-written letter uh you guys like is that what did it? To write about an otter? Oh, his email? Yeah. Oh, actually, yeah. I don't know. I was like, whatever. Jen's the decision maker. He said it was his life's new goal. Life's new mission. I can't remember how he worded it.

I thought, this guy's committed. It might have got a little hyperbolic. Yeah, you got wild. He says the same thing to Hank Williams. Yeah, exactly. But see, now you can tell Hank Williams all your rowdy friends were here. Yeah.

All my rowdy friends came over this morning. Yeah. Do you guys tube a lot? Do you guys call it tubing? Yes. Floating. You guys call it floating? We called it tubing when I was a kid.

Yeah, that was a long time ago. Who calls who and says, hey, let's go tubing? Floating. It was Jen's birthday, so we were trying to get together and enjoy a nice evening together. Was it your birthday?

My birthday was the day before. Did you guys grow up together? No. How do you all know each other? Wow. Well, Jen and I know each other through powerlifting. We were competitive. We were competitive powerlifters. What? That's how we met. You guys met through power lifting yeah we were competitive we were competitive power lifters what yeah

and that's how we met yes power lifting we were both single moms i had just gone through my divorce she was single raising a well she's she wasn't a teenager that daughter how old your daughter 21 wow yeah so i don't need babies just kind of throw that out there so it's like it like dudes that people at home need to get like a notepad out to keep track of what Or just email me. I'll send it. Because a lot of guys are now like, damn it. I feel like have we even made it clear why we're talking about you and men?

Like, is this just confusing to your listeners? Stephanie, the software saleswoman is available. Yes, I'm single. She's romantically available. These are my married friends. She got married friends. So you had a birthday yep and then you guys were like let's get together for the birthday yep and you hatch a plan to do a float yep how did you stage your cars uh well we took it up past the caverns i think and that's where we were going to put in and then we had a car down at the

bottom where we're going to take out bridge yeah then we had a car down at the bottom where we were going to take off. Seventon Bridge. Yeah. Who dropped their car off? I did. Okay. No hitchhiking? No. No.

You guys staged your own drop-off vehicle? Yes. And you planned a float that would be how long? We thought three to four hours, I think. And you guys are floating on what? Inner tubes. Inner tubes. Okay.

Floaty tubes. And it's August? Mm-hmm. Hot tubes. Inner tubes. Okay. Floaty tubes. All right. And it's August. Mm-hmm. Hot day? Hot day. Okay. Yep. Everybody's got the swimsuit, boiling hot, summer day.

Well, it was like 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I had to wait for them to get off work. So it was in the later afternoon. Yeah. What level of tubers are you guys? You guys have it all decked out. You guys each have a separate tube with a cooler and the umbrella. Basic, bitch.

No umbrella. We don't do that. You guys are basic. We had snacks. We had beers. Where do you keep your coldies while you're floating? In my hand. You got them all in your hand?

Did we have them just in the tube? Did you have a... I had a medium-sized dry bag with me with all of our stuff in it, some towels. Thank God. We had a floaty one, too, that you could put the drinks in. It's like a floating ice chest that you can put. Okay, so that's just what he asked you.

You guys said basic. That's high-level float. Well, we didn't have an umbrella. You got like a whole extra float for your coldies. Yeah, that's important. It was my birthday. That's just basic shit, though. Okay, that's basic. That's what everyone does.

Okay. It wasn't a lot of beers, let's be clear. You guys are drinking a bit. Yeah. Impaired? No. It's a responsible amount. I mean, it was my birthday.

We'll leave it at that for me. I can say this. Jen was having a great time. She was not going to be driving herself home because it's her birthday. I was going to drive her vehicle leela was driving her own and so the two of us you know jen wasn't drunk by any means but she's the birthday girl yeah you guys are driving because it's her birthday yeah we're allowing her the freedom to do what she wants on her birthday yeah that's great and you had a yeah i got you yeah, walk me through the story from there. All right, so we walk our tubes out to the river,

and it's probably like 5.30, I think, by then, and we're kind of like, huh, no one else is out here. Do we still go? Do we not? And we were just like, why would you not go because no one was out? I don't know. It just kind of felt weird, honestly. There was like an ominous feeling in the of... It felt weird, honestly. We did... There was...

There was like an ominous feeling in the air? It was a little late. Yeah. But later than I think we anticipated on being on the river, but it's still daylight out. So... And we had seen... There was a couple in the parking lot and you could tell they were like packing up to leave.

And honestly, I thought it's an afternoon float. I mean, people do midnight floats all the time. So it wasn't something... I was kind of like, yeah thought it's an afternoon float i mean people do midnight floats all the time so it wasn't something i was kind of like yeah it's weird no one else is at the spot but i thought yeah it's okay like let's let's just do it so what was throwing you off was that you had kind of missed your window of opportunity well not necessarily but normally we go out to the madison and there's a gazillion drunk college kids and you know, there's families and whatnot. And then this was the first time floating the Jefferson for me. And it was just,

it wasn't the Madison. There was less people. And I think that's what caught me off guard is. Also nice to be by yourself. And that's why we went, we didn't want to be with a bunch of other people. We just wanted to go celebrate my birthday as a group of three friends, not deal with drunk drivers on the road,

not deal with, you know, hooping and hollering about everyone else. We just Not deal with drunk drivers on the road, not deal with, you know, hooping and hollering at everyone else. We just wanted a nice, peaceful evening on the river. Okay. Okay, so you get going. You make the call. Let's go for it.

Yep. So we're floating, I don't know, it was probably two and a half hours or so in, and we're just having a good time, and we were, you know, we're tied together too, right? So we're sharing an inner tube with the two of us. She was facing this way, and I'm facing that way with the beer um she was in a single flip but we were all tied together and so I had been chatting with Lila or just my direction was

towards her when I turned around to Stephanie um I just saw this this thing in the water and now if I don't have my glasses on I can't see very well just throw that out there so true so first I was just kind of like what's that and then I realized it was an otter and my it was just like creeping up like it wasn't splashing subsurface or at the surface at the surface like its head and its body was on top of the water but you couldn't see its legs moving around or anything like it was just kind of cruising right up yeah and uh at first i'm thinking wow this is really effing cool because otters this sounds ironic and like a joke now but otters were my favorite animal i had knickknacks and stuffed animals

like if i had gone to you yeah what when's your birthday august 1st okay if i had gone to you. Yeah. When's your birthday? August 1st. Okay. If I had gone to you July 2023 and I said, what's your favorite animal? Yeah. You legit would have told me. Yes. In July 2023, I was legit contemplating an otter tattoo. Yes.

No shit. And now I have them all over my body. Really? Yeah. And you're backing her I have them all over my body. Really? Yeah. And you're backing her up on this. Oh, yeah. She has that shit on her window seal at her house, at her kitchen. And after it happened, I was like, what the fuck is this?

Let's get rid of these things. But I couldn't with that because it was for my daughter's 13th birthday. So I allowed it. I can't get rid of that one. That one's sentimental. I don't like to look at it, but God.ter is not your favorite animal anymore no we burned many stuffed animals after the attack okay so when you first are aware of the otter how close is it oh uh maybe where yanni's knee is at five yeah it's close to it's on my side yeah she was in between me and the otter

she had her back toward the otter and you think to yourself oh it's on my side yeah she was in between me and the otter she had her back toward the otter and you think to yourself oh that's cool otter yeah and before i could say hey steph there's an otter behind you she got bit from under the water and started you know so it immediately like it immediately came in and just bit you yeah well that's where we think there might have been two because i was looking at one as she was getting bit from underneath i i didn't you know when you're floating you go over rocks and it hurts you know and it's usually your butt and so yeah yeah uh i could tell jen was looking at something and then all of a sudden i felt this really painful something on my rear and i thought oh my gosh and i jumped up and i you know when you're gonna hit rocks you kind of lean up in your tube like this and that's what i did

because it was so painful i knew there were no rocks because the water is so deep where we were so i was like what happened and when i finally turned to see what it is it's an otter and then all hell broke loose but what did you see because it was underwater well i just saw the one i saw yes the one that's just chilling right here he's just like hey get that girl i was like dang anyway uh so it it bit me one of them bit me and of course i was like oh my gosh and by the time i could look over and see what was happening um it came at me again and it popped my tube so then i went in the water and what did yeah i was fighting with it in the water and i honest to god i thought i was gonna

drown i thought it was gonna drown me um you like were you able to get a whole hand on it no it did this really weird um i have no experience with waters until now but it did this really weird what i call a body roll it would uh move its body around my body just like a snake would you know swimming around me and i remember being in the water thinking this thing is hell bent on drowning me hell bit so it you're too deflated that fast oh yeah because Because his claw popped the tube. So I just went straight in with it. Are you on a truck tube? No.

Like a tractor tire tube? Blow up tube. Yeah. Blow up tube. Oh, so thin. Like something you find more at Walmart. Yeah. Like at a grocery store. Not when you buy it at the tire store.

No. I understand. We like those because they have cup holders. But that's okay. So the claw got right through it. Oh, yeah. You're in the water yes and these two of course i don't know what's happening up above but i know that i'm fighting to try and get up to the surface and it's so deep that you can't touch

so i'm so at a point you're completely underwater oh yeah i'm and and it's biting you biting you biting yes scratching biting uh wow i really felt the body weight like trying to keep me in the water it was like not allowing me to to resurface so i fought like hell to get my feet to the bottom to try and just push myself back up um and finally i don't really know how it happened, I was lucky enough to finally just come up. And when I did, it's funny now, but, uh, I remember looking at them and their eyes are huge. And I know I came out of the water looking like help because I, you know, had did what

you're not supposed to do. I panicked. I screamed in the water and you're bleeding now. Oh yeah. Um, of course we don't know how bad we didn't know anything about that at that point but um by the time i i reach up and i i know i said help and i was like grabbing their tube and about that time is when again all hell broke loose and jen ended up going in the water what are you guys seeing in those moments while she's now not around and under the water surface so i mean i

had a feeling i knew what happened to her because i had seen the otter right before all that happened and so for me kind of what she had said is it felt like that you know normal reaction where you're trying to get away from something you kind of like repel yourself and when i did that all of my weight went um on the back of my floaty tube and I fell back, just head first, backwards into the water. So I didn't see a lot of what happened to Stephanie because I, like we found, we talked about that, what, weeks after the accident, kind of finally piecing together,

everything of how it happened in order of events. And so I had fallen backwards into the water while she was being attacked and then yeah have you guys fallen on calling this an accident yeah i mean i call it an accident yeah i wouldn't versus i call it an attack it was like intentional oh oh yeah it was a sabotage for sure it was yeah i call it an attack i. Yeah, it wouldn't be an accident. Yeah. What happened on accident?

I don't know. It's because I would have just. You accidentally got balled by an otter. Yeah, I accidentally just fell in. I just bit my butt. No, that thing was held in on. It was. Yeah, it was like it was hunting us.

Like when I say it was just kind of cruising up in the water. It was just stealthy, like quiet, stealthy, eerie to know. You know, once it was there, it was like stealthy like quiet stealthy eerie to know you know once it was there it was like wow this thing's been watching us for i don't know how long and then all of a sudden to see it and what just how strong of an attack it was it it was yeah it was definitely like it it knew what it was doing when you came up had had either of you guys been bit yet? I had no idea what the hell was going on. I didn't see nothing. All I saw was her tube popped, and then she was in the water, and then somehow Jen was in the water, and I didn't know what was going on.

Well, did you know something bad was happening? Yes. I didn't. I didn't. I'm like, something's happening in the water. She's like, I got to go. I don't know what's going on. So I got on all fours and on my tube and was trying to look

in the water and see what was going on and I remember these two were in the water and I seen this otter come up out of nowhere. It looked like it went to bite the tube

and then I took my dry bag and was kind of shoving it at the otter to try to get away from them and lost it for a second and realized, I need that because it has my phone

in there and my keys and went to grab it and I think that's when i got bit um reaching your hand into the water yeah and then panicked and was like i just need to get to safety and get the hell out of the water because this is i don't want to be wrapped up in the tubes and then drowned yeah so how far apart were you sailed off we were tied together so our tube was a onesie you could say with a cooler in the middle and then her tube was um roped to us so okay so you pop up yes you're already in the water yep you fall in yep okay what's walk me through the sequence then uh because at some point it starts to work on you big time yeah i mean i i feel like the

moment i fell in the water the otter was on me biting um so that again that's why we're thinking there was at least two yep um because i feel like it was fighting or trying to bite me the whole time and so exactly like what stephanie says I remember that thing actually using its hands and pushing me under the water like it was intentionally trying to drown me and that's where the thought came into my head of just my kids and I was just thinking you know in a way like how embarrassing like I don't want my kids to hear that their mom's no longer here anymore because a fucking otter drowned around the river like Like, no way. So I just got mad.

And exactly like what she said, I tried to find the bottom so I could push off and it was too deep. I just couldn't, cause you're under the water for so long. So you're like, fuck. You're so disoriented. You don't know what's up and down.

And it was deep. Well, and your brain's trying to figure out what the hell even happened. Like you have no clue. Like your brain is just delayed. You have, you can't put together that it was the otter that did this and now you're in the water you're just like i have no clue what's going on right now but i know it's not it's not a good thing yeah was this at like sunset on the river yeah yeah i think it was 8 30 i think at that point yeah i know what

else around no one else is around and you guys are screaming like hell but there's no one around yeah and we had just started to flow like the river was just going back from the main highway there. And it was actually kind of behind like a hill. So you couldn't even see like cars driving by or anything. You were just starting to go further back. At what point did it get, at what point did it get like where it was able to have such access to you that it was able to like remove your ear and bite your face like how's all that just right there in the water i just remember trying to like kick it away or like punch it like try and push it away and every time i would do something i was bitten like it didn't so if i hit it with this arm i got bit if i did this arm if i

kicked with my legs and i just remember it felt so hopeless it felt like no matter what i was gonna do it was gonna beat me and i just remember it had bit like my face at one point and i just thought shit that's gonna be really bad like i just knew it was it was an awful wound and then um it bit again on the other side and i was just like what the fuck like what is wrong with this thing and so then i i kind of grabbed it by the shoulder joint. Yeah, it gave you like matching bites. Yeah, yeah. So I got one there. And then at your cheeks.

Yeah. Were your eyes open underwater? I don't remember. I don't think so. They got both my ears too, actually. So, yeah. Were you ever able to get a hand on it or there's just no way you're going to get a hand on it?

No, I grabbed it by the shoulder joint thinking if anything i can hold it away from my body i was thinking away from my face so i can maybe try and swim backwards and so when i did that i was thinking i'll just sacrifice my arm like whatever so i held it back just straight arm as as strong as i could and kind of like swam backwards just to get my feet under you actually were able to get a grip on it yeah yeah yeah she did and I had no clue where these guys were again like left right up down you have no clue you're so disoriented and the chaos and everything and so I was I just got to the nearest shore I could to get out of the water and um when I got to the the shore I remember I was on my hands and knees. So that technique worked, though. You swam holding the otter all the way to shore? Yeah.

I was mad. And was he still, he, she, probably female. Did they think it was a female? I thought it was a female. I don't know. I yelled at it like it was. When you got a grip on it, is it still able to maul you when you got a grip on it?

Yeah, I think that's when it was biting. Because my right arm has more bites here on the front or on the lower arm. I think it was definitely still. But I remember it kind of going like. I remember at this point, I make it to a rock in the middle of the river. And so I'm watching her to see what's happening. And initially she had her back to it. And it did this really crazy like almost it can't leap but you know like a swim and a leap thing and it went to the back of her head

and it clawed the back of her head and i was just like i couldn't do anything right but scream so i was screaming and that's when she turned around and she was, she just grabbed it and she was holding it like this and, and it was still coming. It was trying to get her, but she was holding it and she was trying to, she was stepping backwards trying to find her footing and to get on the shore. And, uh, that was hard to watch, you know. To see your friend like that. Yeah. There was nothing I could do.

And you could see when the otter was, yeah, when yeah there was nothing i could do and you could see yeah when the otter was like getting her you could see blood just going and i thought it's like a bad horror movie yeah i was like i don't really know what this is going to look like at the end but it it was not it was not fun to watch and it was five minutes from the time you like spotted it to the time that the attack ended is that right so? I think so, yeah. I mean, everything happens so fast. Like three to five minutes from the start of the attack. Of just non-stop biting though. Yeah. Yeah, I don't

know. I mean, again, it's hard to keep track of time. Yeah, I don't know either. It felt like forever. Maybe it wasn't quite that long, but... Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers. You're irritated.

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. And when you hit the bank, or I guess just just explained, like, try to explain how it ended. It ended in one way. Yeah. So I got to the bank and I was kind of crawling on my hands and knees. And the thing was hooked into my head at that point with its claws. Like, I have scars in my hair. But you still got a grip or you lost your grip on it by then?

It was underneath me at that time. And I just, you're going to bleep stuff out, right? I don't understand what you mean. So, well, it was kind of like, like I'm on the ground and it was kind of down, like it had fallen in front of me. And I just remember yelling like, you're not going to get me. Sorry. Bleep, bleep, bleep. Because that's why I said I thought it was a female. And I just remember turning and it kind of like swam off but she said when she saw me getting out of the water and it was hooked in like down to my my lower back it still wasn't even out of the water

yeah you could that's I don't know how long it's its head was probably at least to your shoulder and when she's standing you can see her waist's waist, as she's like trying to get away. And you still can't see the bottom or the tail, the start of the tail to this thing. And so I thought, oh my gosh, this thing's huge. And so I was shocked and proud that she was able to hold it. So it was just trying to get out of the wall. I just remember trying to, because it was a straight up bank right there and i just remember thinking i had to get up that bank and furthest away from the water as possible um and at that point still i didn't even know that they were

on the other side of the river yeah you wound up on the not like if you imagine this not great side yeah it's like just for for listeners sake yeah you know like pretty much every large river in the West, it's followed by a road. There's a highway on it. Yeah. And you wound up, there's a highway paralleling the river, and you wound up on the not highway side of the river. And it's a substantial river. Yeah.

I mean, just for people. I don't think you can where you guys were, but you can run a jet boat in the river. It's not a stream. It's a river. We float down there in our drift boat and fish. Yeah guys were but you can run a jet boat in the river it's it's not a stream it's a river float down there on in our drift boat and fish yeah but yeah definitely not a jet boat it's like a it's a river river yeah just yeah and you went up on the other side and that's i must maybe read about the news the next day i just remember being reading about a life-threatening injuries from an otter tank being like what yeah i think that's everyone's reaction yeah i called my dad and i was like hey have you heard these stories about these girls from an otter attack and be like, what? Yeah. I think that's everyone's reaction. Yeah. I called

my dad and I was like, Hey, have you heard these stories about these girls that got attacked by otters? And he was like, yeah, that's crazy. And he kind of gave this laugh and I was like, that was me. And he was like, Oh shit. I was like, yeah, but that that's everyone's reaction. I think when we called to tell my husband, he thought we were all drunk and playing a joke on him. And we were like, no, like I actually almost just died, honey, from an otter. Yeah. So you get to the bank and all of a sudden it leaves. Yeah.

You got to be a bloody mess though. Oh yeah. It was, I had no clue where the blood was coming from. I just remember I kept spitting it out of my mouth and like, I thought maybe it was coming from my mouth, but I I just I think it was just running so much down my face non-stop so I was trying to breathe like because it was blocking my nose my mouth everything and I just kept trying to spit it away so one of you was on a rock one of you was on one side of the river was the other person on the other side of the river then so all

three of you were spread out afterwards well I was just Steph was just below me. I was up on where the railroad track was on the bank there. And she was just a little bit off into the river, standing on a rock there. Because all I could think about was get out of the water and as far away as possible

and then reassess the situation. Yeah. And how did you guys get back together? I didn't see them until the hospital. Okay, so what happens then? I spent 53 minutes on the phone with 911 and trying to use my phone with the light

because it was pretty dusky and dark at that point. I just seen ambulances driving back and forth and I could hear them, but they couldn't see me because we're on the other side of the hill. So I ran maybe a mile and a a half two miles down the train tracks to get attention to somebody screaming at the top of my lungs but you knew where they were we could see them like you knew everybody's out of the water yeah and it was dark now yeah yeah it was getting very you called nine you called 9-1-1 yes and she'd been throwing rocks in the river but she wanted to get out.

To keep the otter, because we didn't know where the otters were. Yeah. And even getting out a little bit, it was like, there's no way she's going to get back in not knowing where they were. And you reached 911 on your phone. SOS. Thank God. Well, that's what you do.

You didn't have service where you were at. There was no service. Oh, you're kidding me. No. Tell me how that goes. I've done it on accident. And then you get the reminder, like, seriously? And you're always like, that's what you do. You didn't have service where you were at. Oh, you're kidding me. No. Tell me how that goes. I've done it on accident, and then you get the reminder, like, seriously? And you're always like, no, no, no, sorry. I had a small minute of panic because I was like, there's no service.

And then I'm like, oh, shit, SOS. Tell everybody what you did. Just so people know. Like, I've never done this before. It's kind of hard to remember. I'm sure I probably just pushed the side buttons on the phone and just said, usually it comes up SOS or like emergency. So I just clicked on that. No, no, no. It's what normally happens. There was a time she was like, yes, yes, yes.

And I got somebody at the 911 dispatch and then they sent me out. There's an otter attack. I don't know. We've got three and a gal that's severely injured, bitten badly on the other side of the river. I still got another gal in the river. We've all been attacked by otters. Yeah, and you're an emergency. I guess we missed it. We talked about this before we started recording. You work in an emergency room.

I do. Yeah. What's your role there? An ER tech. Okay. So you have the right vernacular for it. Sure. You're able to tell pretty clearly.

I mean, when it's your own emergency, it's a little different. And especially when you're watching your friend die across the river. You're not like lesions, upper quadrant lesions. Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely different. Worried about her and not knowing if she was going to be alive when I was able to see her again. Did the responder take you seriously when you said otter attack? her and not knowing if she was going to be alive when I was able to see her again.

Did the responder take you seriously when you said otter attack? I think she had to repeat it. Yeah. Yeah. They, I don't think, I mean, he was very calm, which was nice. It helped me stay calm, but also they were kind of like, what, what, what's going on? And even some friends of mine that work for LifeLight were kind of like joking about the situation. Cause you don't, you're kind of like, what's going on and even some friends of mine that work for lifelight were kind of like joking about the situation because you don't you're kind of like what's going on like later they were able to relay to you that there was a there was a what now just a joke i mean

yeah they're saying what like my response when i saw it right sure like when i read it because like 10 people sent it to me uh-huh and with all the respect like i get it now but with all the respect at the time i saw it i had it like what yeah sure oh yeah everyone does my husband works for the fire department and they were reading everything and i told dispatch i said hey my husband works for the fire department we just floated down the same river like a couple weeks ago He knows exactly where I'm at. Need to get a hold of him. And his number was attached to it.

And his buddies were like, hey, this is your phone number here and your name on this call. And so- Hold on. I got lost. Explain that again. He works for the fire department. Your husband does. Yeah.

So they get the 911 calls. They can see him, all the dispatch calls out. Yeah, yeah. And they were kind of like, hey, so your name is attached. Your wife is calling 911 right now. Well, his name was attached to the call with his phone number. I see. Which they never called him. But he ended up making it out there at some point and picking us up

and taking us to the hospital. So that's how your husband gets news of this. It seems like you're on 911 right now. Yeah. And then I called him thankfully. Once I was out, down, and met with EMS, I was able to get a little bit of service

and luckily my phone had enough charge to actually call him and tell him where I was. So you had to run down a set of railroad tracks to get where the railroad tracks came up to the highway. I mean, and it was, there's still a good amount.

It's like you have to off-road from the highway onto land, then to the railroad tracks. So it's still a good distance from the road to the railroad track. And then, you doing this barefoot or do you have flip flops or something?

Thank God I had water shoes on. Was the SOS conversation clear? Yes. Like you had good signal in that moment. It worked good. As far as on my end, I could hear dispatch clearly and we sound like we had good conversation.

And how did you try to explain where you were just i'm just curious like you know i mean just as a as a as a life lesson like like i don't know i'm on the damn river like you know i mean like what did you what were you saying to to pinpoint your location um that's a good question down i was probably saying down the road from the low hood restaurant okay and why were they not able to just go by your gps on your phone that's not a technology they have that's a good question i think they were trying to ping it i think eventually they could okay i see yeah don't i don't know we were like directly across from the caverns part of the problem is they didn't know how to get to us yeah oh yeah they could

maybe see where we were at but they had no clue how to actually access where we were. I don't understand. What network of roads would have led in there? Yeah, because it's private roads or there's barbed wire fences up along the roads. So it's like, how could they even bring EMS back there? Get emergency vehicles to the, okay. Yeah, yeah. So you run out and eventually you're able to shine a light. Yep. And then how do you escort them through to even get there they off road to get

back there yeah so luckily the landowner was one of the first people that i ran into um and then i think willow creek and some emts and i just said you guys need to keep going down the railroad tracks there's a gal just offside down in the bankment. And then the other gals across the way. And I had already let dispatch know, like, we need a helicopter for the gal across the river. Like, I don't know how badly hurt she is, but she's bleeding profusely when I saw. So we need somebody over there right away.

And what did the landowner, what was the interaction with the landowner? That wasn't much of anything. I think he was just on the side listening because I first was talking to whoever EMT was there on first arrival. And then they just took the four-wheeler down a little bit longer and then walked the rest of the way,

it seemed, down the railroad track. So they live out there and they saw all the lights and they knew something was bad and they could actually hear a screaming. And they didn't know what had happened, but they knew it was bad and they could actually hear a screaming and they they didn't know what had happened but they knew it was bad so he flagged them down and said hey what what's going on where you guys where are you trying to get to because they were just driving kind of back and forth understood so he hopped on his gator with one of the paramedics and trooper barb armstrong with the highway patrol followed them out and she did do off-roading to get out there okay um and how long how long

are you on the bank bleeding 53 minutes 53 minutes was time of dispatch so probably a little bit longer than that and are you able to yell back and forth to each other yeah are you still on the rock okay that's not funny i have to laugh about it how far apart are you guys 30 yards oh so okay so you're yeah we could yell to each other what's that conversation like that's hard for us to talk about a little but i mean once we told leela she had to go she didn't want to go she didn't want to leave us she'd been throwing the rocks in we, Lila, you're our only hope right now. Like, you have to get out there. You have to show them where we're at.

And so once Lila left, I was just like, Stephanie, you have to get out of the water. I said, I know you're scared right now. You have to be super brave. You have to run as fast and as hard as you possibly can and just get the fuck out of the water. With one shoe. With one shoe. And a fucked up hand. Yeah. And so she did. Is the fuck out of the water. With one shoe. With one shoe. And a fucked up hand. Yeah. And so she... Is the rock

out of the water? Yeah, it's a little bit out of the water. So I was just constantly watching my feet because I thought... It's just where that mind plays. If it comes back, it's gonna attack me. Did you ever see the otter again? No, I never did. And what side of the river did you get to?

I was on the one with the railroad track. Got it. So you're yelling to her, just get off the rock. Yeah. Because that was the only way she could possibly, because Lela wasn't going to be there anymore to help bend anything off from above. So yeah, she got over there and...

Now when you say it's hard for you guys to talk about, what do you mean? Well, I mean, I was definitely kind of, I was getting very faint. Oh, you were? Oh, yeah. I think my body was going into shock. I got very lightheaded. I've passed out a few times in my life to where I know what that feeling feels like.

And so I felt it coming on. And, you know, it's kind of like that Hollywood movie moment where, you know, what's going to happen? Am I going to close my eyes and not wake up again? Like, I don't know what, what was going to happen. And so I just kind of had to have that mom, best friend moment where I just said, I said, I know, I said, I know you don't want to hear this. I said, but I don't want to not say, I said, I love you so much. I said, I have to, I said, I have to lay down right now. And I'm, I'm sorry. I don't know what not say I said I love you so much I said I have to I said I have to lay down right now and I'm I'm sorry I don't know what's gonna happen I said but please take care of my children

for me and she was just like shut the fuck up oh my god and I mean like kind of laughing you know and I was pissed mad she was mad I was mad I and I just said i'm sorry i said i don't want to not say this and you you know not hear it i think more so yes i love her and i wanted her to know that but more so i wanted to know a female figure a strong female figure would be there to watch over my kids if i wasn't there and you could feel yourself like oh yeah and you didn't pass out no but i late i said i'm sorry i said i have to lay down right now because I just felt if I got lower, maybe I wouldn't lose my consciousness. And I remember I just laid down. Were you thinking it was because of bleeding so much?

I just thought I was going to die. I mean, if that's what your main thing is, you just had too much blood coming out. Yeah, I just thought whatever injuries I had. And are you just freezing cold by then? Yeah. I can imagine when the sun sets and the temperature goes down well we're wet you know my hair is like every everything on my body was all my clothes and everything and so i i had taken my shirt off because i floated with a shirt over like a tank top so i took my shirt off and i just held it up i knew both my cheeks

were toast but i just i held it up to the side that i was going to lay on and just kind of put pressure and i remember i was just trying to focus I could it was still light enough I could see like some grass blowing in the the breeze in front of me and I just stared at the the grass blowing trying not to like close my eyes and I can hear her and she's screaming and she's yelling and she's telling me to respond to her and i honestly did not have enough strength to say anything back and i in my head i felt so awful because i'm thinking fuck she just she thinks that i just died yeah because i'm not responding so i would just try and moan i would like every now and then i would just try and make some kind of a noise so that she knew i was still

like there oh god man and then she what like just awful tissues yeah i was gonna say sorry yes now huh no um i wasn't expecting a real tearjerker when i came to work today oh what is yeah so um but then i just remember her saying like jen they're coming they're coming do you see the lights because they were coming up the railroad of flashlights you remember saying that no she's i remember her saying that i see she said do you do you see the lights and i just remember kind of like you know i don't know in a way it feels like you're super drunk like your eyes don't they can't focus it's like everything's blurry but i could see the light and i instantly got so reinvigorated like Like I had this adrenaline surge or something where I felt so hopeful that someone was coming because I had heard enough from the conversation she was having that the helicopter couldn't land until someone was on site with me. Now, even if they get to the site, there's still the river, right?

I mean, because of the risk of landing on you. Yeah, I would imagine so. someone has to clear the scene to direct where to put it down exactly and so um i remember the people came up with lights and they yelled you know put raise your hand you know we can't see you we have to see you where are you at and i remember i just kind of like raised my hand i couldn't even hold it all the way up, but just enough. And they were like, um, we can't see you. You have to move. And so I, this is a little funny to look back on now, but I, I kind of, I had enough strength to sit up. And as I sat up, I realized there was a fricking bush right in front of me. And I was like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Like,

so then I had to move my body from around the bush so they could see where i was blocking their view yeah yeah and so then i remember i was just blinded by spotlights and then i heard splashing in the water i didn't know what it was but people had actually swam to me they crossed the river to get to me and now we know those people were the landowner, Doug, and trooper Barb Armstrong. The landowner swam over. The landowner swam over with his dog, Rose. And they came to my side. And then a trooper swam over. A trooper swam up full gear, had a 20-pound paramedic bag or something.

Something she was carrying was super heavy. Really? Yeah. And they just. Just jumped in. Jumped in. Didn't hesitate. No. bag or something something she was carrying was super heavy really yeah and they just just jumped in jumped in didn't hesitate no it was just like they didn't think about their own safety how far the swim was going to be they knew the chance otters were going to be there you know um but they swam to my side and and it feels like a matter of maybe 30 seconds they were with me and

i just heard this the chopping noise of the helicopter oh you're kidding me and it landed like i thought it was gonna land on me like not that i was fearful but i mean he was so precise the pilot i mean right next to us and then the paramedics came out and um i just felt like i was going to be okay. Yeah, for sure. When, when the person emerged out of the water and they started ministering,

like trying to block the blood and stuff. Um, I don't think so. I remember holding Doug's hand. Um, he was holding my hand and it was my bad hand, but I didn't know that. I just,

it was just so comforting to have another human being right next to me. Dude. What a guy. The landowner. Yeah. And I didn't know who it was. I assumed it was just like search and rescue. They sent out dogs or whatever, but it was just a good citizen.

And his dog jumped in and swam over with him. Yeah. Rose. And so the dog, you know, I love dogs and it just felt so comforting. What a nice guy though, man. Oh, incredible. I mean, nice isn't the right word, but I mean like. We're in touch now and it's so nice to have him and his wife,

like just for us to have that connection from such a traumatic experience. Because you feel like you can't really share it with other people. Who was the officer that swam over? Barb Armstrong. And she's with the Highway Patrol. And didn't she receive an award? She did. Yep. The Medal of Valor for the Highway Patrol

for her actions that night. Oh, man. The picture of you in the emergency room, how long after the attack was that taken? Probably two hours. Two hours, and it was, I mean, I can't imagine what you looked like in those first 30 minutes afterwards.

Yeah, because- Two hours, you were still- That was after they had been washing some of the wounds and stuff and and i just remember feeling like i was getting drowned by the saline solution or you would know the technical are you okay if we post a photo again when this comes out yeah and that was two hours after the attack happened yeah i mean which one is it people have commented that it looked like a grizzly bear got a hold of my face or you know know, a lot of comment. And it, you know, and that's why the initial shock, we were like, what, an otter? Like, you think, oh, maybe it's going to be a little bite or something.

And until I think people saw the photos, I don't think they actually understood like how severe of a, not accident, an attack it was. When I met your husband, you guys were laughing about a detailed story. Yeah. They had given you a bunch of pain medication. Yeah. So you were kind of loopy. I was super loopy. And a friend of yours.

Yep. Her husband. Okay. Oh, it's your husband. Yeah. Your husband. Okay. So Jen, your husband is away for work.

He's in Maryland. Yep. He's in Maryland for work. Yep. Leela, your husband calls him two in the morning? Yeah, two in the morning. Probably about that, yeah. And she's in the background laughing.

Yep. And your husband's saying, oh, they were attacked by an otter. Yeah. And your husband is pissed. Pissed. Yeah, because he's thinking we're playing a joke. Because he hears you in the background laughing. He knew that we were going out for my birthday he just assumed we you know had a few too many beers and for some

reason i don't know why he would think we would do that to him but he thought that we were calling with this awful joke and you know of course he's also just been woken up at 2 30 in the morning and he told me at a point he said to your husband yeah he said you are jeopardizing our friendship yes yeah yes what is going on and he's like man i don't know how to put it they got tagged by the there's no other words to use we're in the hospital she's just feeling good oh my god there's no way to explain this

there's no way to explain this differently I remember everyone in the hospital like the doctors nurses everyone was like why are you laughing like you're the nicest patient like this bad shit just happened to you why are you laughing so much and I don't know it's just like if i got really

down and sad and scared i i think it just would have been a completely different experience and i kind of didn't want to let myself get there and i'm also the kind that really i don't like attention and so i feel like i like to make jokes of things to like make me feel better and lighten up a little. Just to break the tension. Yeah. Break the tension of attention. So I would try and make jokes and, you know, I don't know. But I just.

Everybody said you're tough. And they still ask about you. Well, I was feeling good on the phone call. I was just laughing probably with someone else. And he didn't take kindly to that. How did they try to sanitize the cause you know i've heard with with bear attacks it's often it's often um a lot of secondary infections yeah it's hard to clean it's hard to clean it right i was on an ivy

bag of antibiotics okay i was on you would know more i mean i had to be on antibiotics for like 10 days afterwards also, like the pill form, but I had two different doses of antibiotics in the hospital. Washing out the wounds was, I would say a bunch of saline solution, but it just, it was like a squeeze bottle and they just had to squeeze it into everything to try and clean up as much as they could so that they could even see what

the injuries were because it was such dried caked on blood at that point and you're in there with your it's your colleagues yeah so unfortunately um steph and i were quite a bit behind um just because oh yeah because they're in the helicopter yeah oh she went yeah she went right away and then we i don't think we got there till like midnight and i think she got there about 10. Oh, I see. And so we had met with one of the ambulance companies and I asked them if they could just drive me to where my husband was. He was at the Sappington Bridge where he could get some service. So he kind of knew what was going on. Did they treat your guys' wounds there? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So we both had rooms on the opposite ends of the ER. All three of us were kind of in a triangle. And my husband was just kind of going around to each of us, making sure we're all OK. Because remember, I'm the single one. So my husband wasn't there. So Tyler had to stand in.

We all had lots of wound cleaning, sutures. And Jen had to unfortunately go to plastic surgery in the OR. And I'm sure they cleaned her wounds out really well there. Where did they take you? It was in the hospital. So you never got brought to Denver or Salt Lake City or anything like that? No. Give us the stats, Jen, of how many stitches, how many bites, how many cuts, how many hours of surgery.

I'll start with the easiest one. Hours of surgery, I think, was right around five. And that happened that night? It was like at 5.30 in the morning because we had to wait eight hours from when I had last, like, drank or had something to eat. And we had been snacking on food and, you know, drinking beer going down. So I had to actually wait for surgery for eight hours um from eating and so they actually didn't do deep cleaning on my wounds until i was fully under then they could actually kind of go in there a little bit more aggressively um but they stitched up i had seven actual like stitch sites on my body

and then the rest it i couldn't even tell you how many stitches on my face and my ears. They were the invisible kind. And it was just, I mean. So seven on your arms and legs and torso. And then they treat, the face was its own collection of stitches. Yep. So my surgery was just for my face and my ears. And how did they, what was the conversation they had with you about how much of your ear they were going to remove?

So I actually didn't even know that my ear was missing until like maybe halfway through the night. So when you came in, it was missing. It wasn't just shredded. No, it was missing. Yeah. So it was getting chunks of it off. Yeah. So they, he basically just reshaped my ear to have it, make it have a little bit more of an ear shape look to it. So he did have to trim a little bit more off in order to kind well and to also feel some ate the ear pieces

i bet you know i want to know sick thing actually i kind of wanted to reach out to vander holyfield and be like hey bro we both have something in common only mine was an otter yeah man you guys can start like a year yeah like we only know what that's like so vander if you're listening right now total stitches though we're like in the hundreds oh yeah yeah easily surely yeah yeah damn so and a lot um there were some sites that didn't even get stitches because you know like a blood pressure cuff was on it or something so they didn't see it initially and then it was kind of too late and so that's why some of these ones are a little bit more bigger just they didn't get closed what was the deepest or the my hand my hand my palm there's photos of that too but my palm was the word it was just this

big chunk of open hand have you gotten all functionality back? Yeah. It probably only took maybe a month or so. My fingers had a little bit of weird nerve stuff in them. My palm of course was a little bit longer to heal up. But yeah, no other issues. And are you done?

Then I could go do more stuff to try to put your ear back together more. You'll just, you'll just ride it out. I mean, you could, but I don't really care enough. I was kind of joking about it afterwards.

Like I already have a husband and kids. It's a new signature. I don't have anyone else to impress. Like I'm married. As long as my husband doesn't leave me, I don't, I don't have to do dating again. What were the wounds on you other two?

Uh, well, I have, I just had a lot of like bite marks and scratches. What were the wounds on you other two? Well, I just had a lot of bite marks and scratches. And I would say the worst of them was my hand. I don't know how it happened. I'm just guessing that it probably bit my hand and I just yanked it. And I think that was probably the worst. I mean, of course pretty beat up it was pretty mangled yeah they couldn't even close it up in the hospital for quite a while because there just wasn't enough skin to reattach what about your butt bite um i mean that all of those places were

crazy but it's just like spots like um you want to show your butt off to the public no I do not you can just tell us it looks like that like you can tell where the scratches are yeah and then there's teeth you can tell where the teeth entered and yeah you know Steve's always wanted to get scratched up by a grizzly but a little bit it might be down down the river and get a little bite on your body. Just stick your hand in there. A light little ball. Yeah, just stick your hand in there.

It'll be great. Do you guys know what wounds are teeth versus claws? I do. I feel like I can tell. Walk us through them. Which ones are teeth and claws? That's a bite mark. Oh, look at that.

That's like top and bottom jaw. You can see. Yeah,'s a real clean like so that shows you that on your shins yeah it shows you it's gape yep so that's a bite oh that was probably a bite um these would be more scratches oh that's another uh the thinner you know lines're going to be more of the scratches. And then I had, like, these fingers had to be all stitched up. That's what those scars are. So. Yay. And then my face.

Yeah, the cheeks bites, right? Yeah. And I have one, like, right up here by my eye, too. And I'm so grateful that it missed. Or that, and it bit my nose. I'm so grateful it didn't or that and it bit my nose. I'm so grateful it didn't bite, you know, my nose off. I'd much rather have my ear

in his belly than my nose. But because I can't see my ear all the time. Yeah. And I know you forget about it. Yeah. Take them for granted. Yeah. Yeah.

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yeah everybody had a laugh everybody had a laugh attitude. Yeah. Maybe not in the very beginning, but now. I think I struggled a lot. After the fact. Yeah, I did. It just obviously wasn't a great experience because of my friend and the things that Lila had to leave us and the two of us, the conversation that was happening back and forth, and then us both being okay.

It was really hard for me to kind of be okay with or to realize that we're both okay, we're safe. That happened because the situation we were in. How long did that feeling last for you? Quite a while. I would say a couple months, like three months. I really struggled. Did you have a guilty feeling?

I did because I couldn't do anything. And you hadn't gotten as tore up. Right. And that is something that I really struggled with as well is that my friend was really injured and I felt really lucky that I wasn't. And I felt guilty that I wasn't. And so I definitely out of the three of us struggled a lot, I would say. And I would text them and be like, you're gonna have to bleep this out. But I'd like i'm fucked up like is that right yeah like i'm fucked up over this we all did counseling people focus on the physical trauma because that's what you see when you see photos or you hear the story and you know it was bad but it's the mental trauma that that people don't talk about as much and that's almost in a way harder i mean wounds heal like we have scars whatever but

it's the emotional piece that isn't as easily fixed yeah and i think there was a lot of survivor's guilt i mean i didn't die but you know i think there was survivor's guilt on their end like i wish i would have done this i wish i would have done that you know i'm a horrible friend because i didn't do more yeah because i i think that knowing that but like knowing where you land that everybody's okay i think there's still these moments like for you stephanie where she's not talking anymore yeah right and it's like though later it wound up being that that wasn't what you thought you still had to live in that you still had to like occupy that space absolutely right and then it may be false alarm but you had to

sit there a sec with that yes you know what i'm saying absolutely we had to think no one even got hurt but we had a running with a bear one time and there was a there was just a fraction of a second there was a fraction of a second where i thought uh i thought to myself in slow motion i was like life will never be the same again and something really terrible is happening right now yeah and then it all of a sudden wasn't right like life was the same nothing terrible happened but that fraction of a second was emotionally very impactful absolutely total false alarm but it taxing but it didn't go away right exactly yes it did not go like the most close calls it goes away like like this morning i mean just very minor like my little boy i went to wake my

little boy up he's not in his bed he's playing a game with me where he's hiding right as soon as i realize he's hiding his closet there's no like emotional damage done right for me i'm like what in the world yes absolutely and uh but i don't like i'm not gonna go seek therapy about it because it was i don't know i don't know the difference yeah but with that stuff with that bear dude it took a toll yeah it's it's over now but for a while it was hard i kept saying i think i had gone to the hospital and we had to get our rabies vaccine and my daughter was driving me. And I remember looking around and all these people are driving their cars and walking down the street with coffee and just laughing. And I was like, I feel like my world kind of stopped. And everybody else is still like doing their thing.

And I felt so out of place like i felt because i had just gone through this really traumatic thing and i just couldn't i could not put those pieces back together i was i was just really struggling i read a lot about after that happened i read a lot about different aspects of of i don't know how you put it i don't know what the words were different aspects of of near-death experience stuff and different ways people respond to things and how you get there's these approaches where you hear people say time stood still you hear people say everything happens so fast and it has to do with different people and that you become fixated on a thing.

Okay. Like, let's say you come in, there's a terrible tragedy. Some people will describe just like a thing. It was like a thing that they were aware of and they missed everything else. Other people will describe utter chaos. There's no single thing. It's just like different brains come into it in a different way sure and through these conversations this guy wrote an email in after we discussed this on

the podcast and he wrote an email in about one time almost getting crushed by a tree he was sawing a tree down and the tree a breeze came and sent it and he want to he the tree was coming the wrong way at him he went to get out of the way and fell and tripped and for a second he was sure that he was crushed and dead yeah but he get out and the tree missed him and he said later it like it stuck with him so bad he later went and he cut all the tree up but he later went and looked like in the hole that he tripped in and he said like i had this moment where i thought i would look in there and my bones would be in there like that that i did die and somehow this is all this thing that's occurring in my head and i can't shake it he's like i looked in there thinking that i wasn't

there yeah and he wasn't but he had to go check yeah because like something for him switched that day you know yeah so it is man and i think that it's like a empathy thing too because it's um that stuff with that bear i didn't think anything bad was gonna happen to me but i somehow felt like it would fall on me. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. That it would be like, sort of like my thing. Yes. It was like my thing that led to this. Yeah. I don't know.

It's like, you can't, I try so hard to explain, but I can't explain it. It's gone now, but it was there for a while. It was there for some number of weeks. Well,

you're the leader of the pack, so it would have been on your shoulders. Yeah, it was my own tag. It was my own tag it was my own tag you know i mean like i set this you know i created this thing and then now look god it's like it was the flash it was like the smallest flash but it never ever went away man yeah right no i shouldn't say never it took forever to go away yeah it's terrible it is it's uh i honestly like i would tell them

i think something's wrong with me oh really because i seem to really struggle i did i i struggled a lot um and i think i even told jen maybe lila it was probably a group message where i was like you guys seem so okay and i cannot get there you know and it took me a while like it was hot i don't know it was i it took me a while to get there i now i can laugh about things and you know it's easier everyone's okay i'm definitely in therapy but i have been so you know it's not a new thing for me but you know you got you got stuck yes you got stuck in the version yeah you got stuck in the version where she just passed out and died yes like your head got there and your head don't want to leave that spot yeah and you can't tell it to yeah yeah so you know it was it's been hard that was hard and i i would say i'm doing much better but uh yeah i think we've all dealt with it in our own ways and i think for jen it's been really good for her

to be able to speak out and share her story and i'm the opposite i'm like i don't really want my face out there i don't want to talk about this and a lot of it does have to do with the really negative reaction that happened all over the internet. Photos were posted of Jen and the crap people were saying. What do you mean the negative reaction? Well, you know, Jen actually put out her own story with her photos and told about what happened to us. And so many people were really awful and what i what i will say is like it's kind of like those stories where you hear about tourists that are in yellowstone and they go up to a bison and they get kicked hold on that it was you guys were so dumb for floating down a river yeah people were

saying that we were probably out of staters trying to take selfies trying to pet the otter trying to pet the otters we weren't paying attention we weren't aware we didn't know what we were doing i mean there were very terrible things and so it actually it got to a point where i had to say okay this can't be a thing that i'm looking at because these people one don't know us these are like comments and like news media websites i never traffic in that stuff, man. Because when I hear someone getting attacked by something, I always think, I can picture that. See?

Thank you. Thank you. And so we had to stop looking at those things because the reaction was very negative. And it was, so it's been really hard for me to be so open and honest and put my face out there and say, yeah, like I was a part of that group. And also because it's a really hard thing. It was a really terrible thing we experienced

and people make so light of it. It's hard. It's hard for me. Wow, man. I'll tell you, I have to be, I guess it's confessional to say that in wanting to talk to you guys,

I didn't, because everything happened so okay, and when I met you, you were so just like funny about it. I didn't factor that there was a, that there was a lingering emotional effect to it because you were so flippant. Yeah.

Part of that is just the defense mechanism of not wanting to get too serious and I was talking to Giannis' wife on the phone last night. They were on Giannis' daughter and I was like, oh, she's kind of hilarious. I said she's like, I said she's really funny about it.

I said you should come down and meet her. I don't want to get stuck in that negative mindset. Like I, if I'm going to live with this for the rest're all sad. I don't want to get stuck in that negative mindset. Like, if I'm going to live with this for the rest of my life, I'm not going to let it control my life. You know, I lost an ear. You know, I have scars. It could have been so much worse. One of us could have been lost.

It's so minor in the grand scheme of things that I don't want to give it that power. I don't know if this isn't helpful, but I mean, you could have taken a big old gasp of water underwater. Oh, trust me. We've played the what ifs. I mean, it's rattlesnake territory out there. I could have been laying next to rattlesnakes for an hour.

You know, talk about a bad situation getting worse. Like, what if one of those would have came up? Like, we had no clue it could have happened when it was dark if we lost our phone if we couldn't get through on sos mode i mean i've camped out there enough i already knew there was no service i already knew we were up a creek up a river without a paddle like i already knew for real down the river i already knew it was a bad situation down the river with no paddle. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess. Think about how many thousands of people do that exact same thing.

And that's what we felt so hurt, I think, is because it's so common, especially in this area. Everyone knows what floating the river is. But people that are reading the story in New York or L.A., you know, they might not associate that a river can you know be a recreational activity too and so a lot of that was just judgment of being like why would you even be out there doing that well it's a past time for montanans like it's normal oh they're sitting oh my they only learn from it from the concierge at the hotel then they go and they're like this is the best thing yeah exactly yeah so yeah i think part of it is just people couldn't relate to what had happened like they couldn't put themselves in the same situation and and some of those people i don't

know i actually tried to come at them with kindness is it's like i i actually truly hope that you never have to experience a situation or you don't have to see a loved one go through the situation because it's not just us who are reading the comments, it's our family members, it's our dear friends, and it's traumatizing for everyone involved. And it's like why you have to be so unkind to people at one of the worst moments of their life just blows my mind.

It's just not how I operate. It's not how we operate. And just to know that there's so much like ugliness in the world, I think that was almost the hardest part to be okay with. But, you know, on the flip side, there were so many great people who reached out and we met neighbors for the first time. They came and mowed my lawn. So my husband didn't have to worry about it while we also had our two-year-old son um you know meal trains and just sweet offers of help or cards

flowers like everything and i had hundreds of people message on facebook and not a single one of them was negative in any mean you know the comments it's easy to be a keyboard warrior you know and respond to something but i don't get what that, I don't know why. I don't understand, man. I don't understand it. People are savage. Yeah. And I guarantee they wouldn't say it to your face.

No. Yeah. I would actually, I would love to meet some of them face to face and have them try and say it. Like, it's just too easy for people to be mean. It's how Jen and I met. Word started to spread in our, we live like five houses away. Word started to spread a little bit in our HOA Facebook group

before it had ever like really gotten out there. Yeah, so we had traded some Facebook messages then. Have you talked to any other otter attack victims? Yeah, I actually have had a few people reach out. They've kind of shared the same experience as just people being so cruel to them as well. Kind of, you know, mockery of the situation. And people, you know, would say, oh my gosh, I floated that exact same stretch the week before.

And we had otters charge us too. Luckily we had oars and we could you know swat them away um it yeah i mean with the other victims uh men or women women actually i i so in 2017 i was freelancing and i wrote i covered a story for field and stream of somebody in minnesota got attacked by what they thought was musky uh they later figured out was probably an otter in that same lake five years later a woman got attacked by an otter we were just talking about beforehand how a succession actress got attacked by an otter last year uh we had a stat on trivia one time that was like 80 percent of lightning strike victims are male because they

participate in more high-risk activities like camping fishing um things on mountains and water leaning on flagpoles yeah there's like some real uh anomaly where uh like all the the otter attack women that are otter attack victims i'm aware of which is now like you know seven or eight bulban women yeah there was actually a guy right like a month after us and i think it was um northern california he was out swimming in a a lake and he was out by himself his wife was from what i read she was up at the like cabin or whatever they had been staying in and um he was attacked and it was very relatable because he had a lot of the same thoughts that I had. Like, no one's going to hear me. This is the end. You know, all those things.

And he's the only male that I'd heard of that had been attacked. Prior to you, I knew of one, and it was a trapper who got mauled by an otter. Yeah. How'd that go down? Yeah. I don't want to say the brother had it coming, but I definitely don't. He had a crossover set on a levy and hooked an otter on a Drowner rig,

but I don't know if he jacked the Drowner plate up or whatever. So he was trying to assess how he was going to deal with the situation. It slipped. Oh, crap. In with it. And they got him through a hip boot through his jeans and through his long johns and got his leg pretty good but definitely not you know i mean just different situation not not a you wouldn't call that a random you know a friend of mine uh the

writer ian frazier he wrote a thing about how bears are covered in the news and it was sort of like an article about the way bears get covered in the news and it was sort of like an article about the way bears get covered in the news and he talked about some bear attacks being described as senseless senseless violence oh gosh and the otter would probably i mean you know bless his heart the otter probably like no it wasn't senseless at all it was a she it was like what are they doing yeah they're like in my spot yeah yeah where i fish and like get out of the spot exactly that's what we've heard they're super territorial it could have been like a a really rich food source for them there could have been young nearby we don't we didn't see any my ass yeah yeah she thought she or he she

thought you know she's doing what a protective mother daughter would do i guess i suppose yeah steve i want to uh tell you how meat eater ranks uh among these three jan had wrote an update in the gofundme about a month after the attack she said guys the media attention is nuts at this point i have said no to interviews it wasn't just me that was there that night there were three of us and we all have a story and perspective to share. However, we all agreed that if Oprah reaches out. I forgot about that. Is she in the biz still?

I don't know. Yeah, she does a few here and there. She said only Oprah, and now here they are on Meat Eater. Wow. That's nice. Thank you for having us, by the way. Yes, thank you. It's been a pleasure.

A part I left out is when she said the media attention is nuts, we've had people reach out from the UK, Latvia, Brazil, Denmark, Australia. Latvia? Was it Giannis? Croatia, Inside Edition, People Magazine, Fox, CNN, Outdoor Magazines, Podcast, Meat Eater, et cetera. Oh, I said Meat Eater. The folks that all reached out reached out well thank you for coming on yeah thanks for having us um my invitation comes from a place of warmth thank you yeah i would never

think this guy's laughing when i say that i would never have any part of me think, well, they had that coming. Yeah. Well, thank you. A lot of people did. It wasn't very nice. Tubing. Yeah. This floating.

Just enjoying life. We even had a- How dare they? I won't mention what organization, but someone was, I don't know. I've never been on the radio before, so I don't know what I can't say. What do you mean the organization uh someone involved with animals that was researching the event and they even made comments that um if only i could have stayed on my inner tube my injuries wouldn't have been as bad and asked me how much i thought alcohol had to do with the accident. Who was this group?

FWP. Oh, okay. And that was the next day. And it felt very raw and very much like victim shaming in a way. Basically accusing me of having fun on my birthday and that I asked for this to happen. By falling off your inner tube. Yeah, and I told him, I said,

you know what, I think if that played a part, I wouldn't have been here to talk to you right now. But it just felt so accusatory and shameful. I was just really kind of shocked by that response. And my husband, you know, we asked what was going to be done, if they were going to go out and, you know, assess the situation. Because so many people asked, well, were they rabid well we don't know like there as far as we were told there was wasn't a major investigation um by their own admission that it was a one-off situation and that it wasn't much to research and our point was well isn't that the situation you would want to research is the one-off like yeah and so it

just felt like you weren't taking series from the get-go um and then if like stephanie said all the the negative media comments and stuff like that it just felt like wow this is really awful and and i don't know they treated you for rabies though even though they didn't all three of you yeah yep that was fun. Yeah. I had three shots in the ER because my wounds were everywhere. They had to be just general locations. I think yours were around your injuries. Is that right?

Like around the bite wounds. And then we had to go back for three separate doses afterwards at three days, seven days, 14 days. Have you guys been back to that stretch of the river? No. Do you think you would that stretch of the river? No. Do you think you would go float that stretch again? No. Not that stretch. Do you think you'll float this summer? We're talking about doing it on the one-year anniversary,

but we're going to go to the Madison. Where all the people are. Yes. During the day. Loud noises. Yes. I got a friend of mine that he was a commercial fisherman and his boat sank. And all the people on his boat died, but he lived.

And actually kept one of the guys with him on a little piece of detritus they were floating on. And he was rescued after some days and changed his birthday. Oh, wow. And from then on, he made it that that's the day he celebrates his birthday the day they pulled him out of the water yeah because he said like shit started over for him that day that was going to be the day that he turns yeah just like a strategy right yeah so you should go float on that day we are the day after her birthday. You bring a pistol?

I have a diver's knife now. And it will be strapped on tight. Where are you going to mount it? I don't know yet. Somewhere I can easily access it. What diver's knife did you get? Can I get you one? Can I get you a different one?

My husband bought it for me for Christmas, so I don't exactly know which kind, but I trust what he picked out. But sure. Maybe for these two. Are you going to go on your arm or are you going to go on your leg? What are you thinking? I was thinking my leg. I'm going to have to get one. I guess I'll go with my arm.

Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, people are like, did you see the ladies with the knives? They're a bunch of badasses. With the knives and the little beer floating in. Yeah. And our tattoos. we didn't talk about the tattoos oh yeah i was gonna ask let's end on that you're not the only one that has

no all three of us have okay yeah explain the tattoo so the tattoo is a cow uh that just comes from the funny part of that night that represents us all. Because we've actually been talking about getting a matching tattoo that night before the accident. And so we customized it. So it's a cow in an inner tube drinking a beer and the beer can says FTO for the otters.

And then I had them make the right ear of my cowl bitten off so we could match. That was a good idea. So, yeah. And hold on, Stephanie, where's yours? Mine's on my back. Oh, so you didn't match locations. No, I didn't.

No, different locations. Right above my bite mark. Yeah. Different locations, different colors. No, different locations. Right above my bite mark. Yeah. Different locations, different colors. Yeah, you know. We had a guy on, well, it hasn't come out yet. Anyways, Brad Leone. There's a guy named Brad Leone.

He's funny. He, you know, people get sleeves. He's thinking about like sleeving his butt. Oh, God. That's awesome. That's pretty wild. I've thought about an actual sleeve, but... Not on your butt?

Not on my butt. Yeah, he might sleeve his butt cheeks. That's awesome. That's a great idea. Okay, cool. Yeah. He probably won't be the first one. No, probably not.

Definitely not. I don't think he's actually going to. I think he's kind of mostly joking. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Dude, it's a rich rich rich story i'm glad everybody's good yeah yeah us too and i hope you get over that feeling

yeah logic would suggest because look at her she's great right exactly it's single yes and single oh no no i'm saying for your feeling of guilt yeah just keep i know i think jen actually told me that one time i was telling her about what i was feeling and she said i am okay with i'm okay i'm okay with everything that happened the way i look you need to get there yep and that actually really helped me because i was like she is okay we're sitting right here she was feeling more worse for my injuries than i me because I was like, she is okay. We're sitting right here. She was feeling more worse for my injuries than I was. And I was like,

dude, if I can laugh about it, you can, you can be okay. Just chill out. Hey man, you're a good friend. Listen,

you're a good friend. My kid told me a quote the other day. He said, if friends are money, I don't know where he didn't make this up. He said, if friends are money, he said,

if friends are money, it's better to have four quarters than a hundred pennies. Yeah. You're a 50 cent piece, dude. Hell yeah. So that's good. I like it. I'll take it.

Thanks, guys. Thank you guys. I just want to add something, too, as a thank you, but thanks for being so open and vulnerable about it. Because, again, not what I was expecting coming to work today. Yeah, because you just think you're just going to come here like a funny otter attack story. Just another funny otter attack. That guy.

Right? So anyone that's laughed, Yanni says it's not funny. Yeah. No, it's not. I mean, you guys are laughing about it, right? It's taken us a while to laugh. Exactly. It's a really fine balance, right?

And like you're saying, it's a way to cope with it, too. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. We've got to keep you on your toes. Yeah, totally. Especially with this one. Yeah.

Me? Yeah. Well, thank you guys. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for having us. OnX Hunt law but hear this on x hunt is now in canada it is now at your fingertips you canadians the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season now the hunt app is a fully

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