A Bozeman, Montana man is being called the manliest man alive after escaping not one bear attack, but two, and then filming himself describing the aftermath.
The video Todd Orr uploaded to Facebook with blood streaming down his face due to multiple lacerations has gone viral, garnering more than 20 million views in just 17 hours.
What’s most remarkable about the video is Orr’s composure as he matter-of-factly describes how the bear attacked him defending her cubs. Orr was hiking by himself spotting for elk when he encountered a mama grizzly with cubs across a meadow. That’s when she charged.
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“Life sucks in bear country,” Orr says to open the video. “Just had a bear come at me from 80 yards.”
Orr said he sprayed her pretty good with bear spray at about 25 feet but her momentum carried her right through the orange mist. The heavy dose of pepper spray was not enough to stop the bear from attacking. That’s when he went to the ground to protect the back of his neck.
“She got my head good, (I don’t know what’s going on under my hat), my ear, my arm. A lot of pieces of stuff are hanging out. I don’t know what’s going on there. And then my shoulder. I think my arm’s broke.”
It’s unclear what eventually made the bear stop attacking. After it left him alone, he walked three miles out to a trail head where he filmed the video. In an earlier post, he described the incident in more detail.
He said each bite felt like a sledgehammer. The bear would bite his arms and shoulder and then stop only to resume again a few moments later. Finally it stopped and Orr pulled himself.
He managed to walk and jog about three miles down the trail when the bear suddenly appeared again. That’s when she attacked again and this time he wasn’t sure he would survive.
“She slammed down on top of me and bit my shoulder and arms again. One bite on my forearm went through to the bone and I heard a crunch,” he wrote. “My hand instantly went numb and wrist and fingers were limp and unusable.”
That’s when he played dead and complete silence fell over the scene.
“I will never forgot that brief moment. Dead silence except for the sound of her heavy breathing and sniffing. I could feel and her breath on the back of my neck, just inches away.”
And then she finally left him alone.
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