A DAD shared the terrifying story of how his face was torn off by a grizzly bear while on a hunting trip.
Jeremy Evans, then 39 years old, was on a solo hunting trip in the isolated Alberta Rockies, Canada in 2017 when he was savagely attacked by a bear. The attack left him with such grave injuries that he contemplated ending his life.
Within hours of arriving in the mountains on August 24, the dad-of-one was slumped on the ground, critically injured.
A bear had torn off Jeremy’s face in “one fell swoop” and chewed on his head “like a dog gnawing on a bone”, as he previously told The Sun.
Recounting the moments following the attack, Jeremy shared in March of the previous year: “I discovered a fragment of flesh with some bristles on it and a soft area, which turned out to be part of my moustache.
“I then found a larger piece that felt like rigid cartilage. It was a portion of my ear and part of my scalp. I picked it up from the ground.
“I was sitting there holding a piece of my face, I knew I wasn’t going to make it and there were a couple of options.
“Do I try to endure the unendurable? Do I just like I didn’t let things happen? Or do I end it on my terms?
“So I loaded up my rifle, I place one against the ground, I put my chin on the barrel and I pulled the trigger.”
The attack began when Jeremy, an experienced hunter, spotted some sheep and sat quietly to observe them.
A female bear, protecting her cub nearby, charged at him unexpectedly before he could grab his weapon.
The dad had “just half a second to react” and immediately fought back, hitting the bear in the face with his backpack.
Jeremy said: “I remember seeing her teeth sink into my hand, and I could feel it separating the bones.”
After scrambling up a tree for safety, he was dragged back down and continued to be attacked.
He said: “She came in with her mouth and bit me right on the left side below my ribs, but above my hips.
“She picked me up and shook me like a rag doll and threw me on the ground.
“Then before I can even take a breath and curl up in a ball she bit me on the left side of the face.
“When she crunched down she removed the whole left side of my face in one fell swoop.”
Eventually, after a violent struggle, Jeremy managed to fight off the bear by pinching its underbelly.
He explained: “She made a horrible sound and started bucking like a bronco and squealing like a pig.
“I let go, and she ran away defecating across the mountainside.”
But the hunter’s nightmare didn’t end there – things were about to get even worse.
He suddenly heard the sound of ice breaking and realised the bear had come back.
She grabbed him “by the back of the head” and started dragging him around 1,000ft across the ground before stopping.
Jeremy continued: “The bear reached over and grabbed the lower corner of the left side of my face, peeling off all the skin from my face, all the way across my head to my ear.”
He found the bear’s soft underbelly once again and squeezed with all his strength.
The startled bear released him and ran off across the mountain, leaving Jeremy’s battered body slumped on the ground.
At this point, Jeremy felt a strange “calm feeling” as he resigned himself to the reality that he might not survive.
He said: “I was bleeding out of my face, my hands, my left side, my legs the blood was just pouring out.
“I was sitting there thinking, this is it. This is the end. When I came to that realisation things slowed down and I got really calm.”
Jeremy then decided to take his life. He loaded his rifle and pulled the trigger – but it didn’t fire.
As he tried to reload it, the gun went off and missed his face by “inches”.
This gave him the courage to walk down the mountain and “make it somewhere where they’re going to find the body” to give his wife closure.
He described: “I managed to make it about 15 feet down, but then I fell into a drainage area and rolled roughly 200 feet down to a creek, where I ended up tangled in the rocks, lying face down in unbearable pain.”
Jeremy tried to send goodbye messages to his family while playing music to calm his thoughts.
The first song that played was the baby shark song he used to put his daughter to sleep the night before.
This gave the severely injured hunter “inspiration” to keep going.
Eventually, he reached a campsite, where he found a notebook and wrote a message to his wife, Joyce.
After hours on the ground with alarms set to keep him awake, he decided he had to keep moving and find his vehicle.
Against all odds, Jeremy made it to his car and drove 14 miles to a resort, where he was able to get medical help.
When he arrived, his injuries were so severe that a child mistook him for someone dressed as a “zombie” for a prank.
Jeremy was airlifted to the hospital, where he spent five weeks recovering.
He underwent five major surgeries to treat his injuries, two of which lasted up to 13 hours to salvage parts of his face, along with 15 minor ones.
He later faced a long battle with PTSD, triggered by everyday sounds or smells that reminded him of the attack.
Jeremy documented his experience in a book titled Mauled and hopes to raise $5 million in funds for PTSD research.
