Animal attacks are rare but can be deeply traumatic and life-changing.
Jeremy Evans, a maintenance supervisor and experienced hunter from Alberta, Canada, learned this firsthand on August 24, 2017. While hunting for a bighorn ram in the Rockies, he spotted a grizzly cub just ten feet away—and knew its mother was close.
Moments later, the mother bear charged. Jeremy grabbed for his bear spray but was too late. She struck him as he tried to climb a tree, mauling his face and leaving him gravely injured.
“My left eye was hanging out… my jaw was down, and all my teeth were exposed,” he told the Daily Mail. He even gathered pieces of his scalp from the ground. Believing he would die, he tried to end his life with his rifle—but it misfired.
Determined to survive, Jeremy crawled and stumbled down the mountain, eventually reaching his car and driving 22 km to safety. After five major surgeries and weeks in the hospital, he was left with lasting injuries, PTSD, and partial loss of facial function.
Despite everything, Jeremy continues to hunt, now sharing his story worldwide as a motivational speaker and author of Mauled, his account of survival.