Bear Attack Survivor Shares Chilling Messages He Wrote When He Realised He Was Going To Die

In 2017, Jeremy Evans ventured into the Canadian wilderness with the aim of locating a sheep. However, his expedition took a terrifying turn when he had a close encounter with one of the most fearsome creatures of the wild, which almost resulted in his demise. While exploring the woods in Alberta, Jeremy was startled by the sound of a branch snapping.

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As Jeremy spun around to face the source of the noise, he realized he had already run out of time. Despite his best efforts, the mother grizzly bear had spotted him near her cub and was only a mere four feet away, extending her paw in his direction. With no one else around, the bear perceived Jeremy as a potential danger, thus initiating a life-and-death struggle.

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Encountering grizzlies in the wilderness was nothing new to Jeremy, who was an avid hunter and had learned to steer clear of them whenever possible.

For the past 17 years, the maintenance supervisor had been on the hunt for a ram with horns that formed four-fifths of a complete circle on each side of its head, a condition that would make it a legal kill in Canada. On August 24th, 2017, as he rode his bike to the hunting area and gazed over the handlebars at a group of sheep, he spotted a small brown creature dart across his field of vision.

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"I knew instantly what it was," Jeremy said. "I had that feeling like, 'I'm screwed'."

The creature that Jeremy spotted turned out to be a bear cub, which typically stays close to its mother.

Upon noticing the adult grizzly bear, Jeremy had no chance to retrieve his bear spray and defend himself. In a split-second decision, he seized the bicycle in front of him and swung it towards the animal, trapping its head within the frame.

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As Jeremy persisted in his efforts to fend off the bear and make it retreat, the animal inflicted significant wounds on his hand. Despite this, the bear eventually began to withdraw, distancing itself to around 30 feet away. While Jeremy slowly backed away, hoping to secure a safe distance, the bear was not yet done.

"She just spun right around and came charging back in a second time," Jeremy recalled.

"The second time I just chucked my pack at her and I ran up the hillside as fast as I could to try to climb into a tree... I got about six feet up [but] my right leg was hanging low."

"She came running at the tree, stood up on her hind end [and] with her two paws, grabbed my right leg and pulled it down... As I'm watching, looking down, she clamped on my leg. I'm thinking, 'this is gonna hurt'."

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The bear attacked Jeremy's knee, causing it to crunch and forcing him out of the tree. With a firm grip on him, the animal bit down and hurled him upwards before lunging on top of him and biting his face.

Pretending to be lifelessly proved ineffective, as the bear continued to inflict harm. In response, Jeremy opted to fight back once more. He struck the bear in the face, gouged her eyes with his fingers, and even managed to seize her tongue as she prepared to bite again.

Jeremy's most effective tactic involved grasping a tender patch of skin beneath the bear's abdomen and twisting it, causing the animal to emit a high-pitched cry and scurry away into the forest.

After rising to his feet, Jeremy located his bag and took a photo of his injured face.

Due to the graphic nature of the picture, UNILAD decided not to use it in its entirety. However, it showed how Jeremy's skin had been torn from his face and eyes, leaving him bloody and barely recognizable.

Jeremy reflected himself as he looked at this image, "Well, it's not so bad."

Reader, You can count on it being that awful. However, things were just going to get worse.

When Jeremy heard the sound of "ice breaking," it was the bear's jaws clamped around his head, dragging him backward as he was loading his pistol.

"I just remember feeling her dragging my butt across the ground, probably 10, 15 feet or so. [I was] sitting on my butt, couldn't move," Jeremy said.

"Her claw caught me on the side of the face and then peeled everything back, my ear and everything. [She was] just gnawing on the back of my skull, like a dog on a bone just crunching away."

"She was ripping things off on my neck and collarbone. She chewed on all that."

Jeremy said he "held on for dear life" as the bear began "panicking" as he attempted to grasp onto the bear's soft spot once more. Jeremy let go as she started to run, causing his wounded body to fall to the ground. He was unable to see due to the attack impairing his eyesight, but he was still able to crawl back through the woods and locate his bag and gun.

His mustache and goatee, as well as a portion of his face and one of his ears that had been completely torn off by the bear, were the first items he came across while searching the floor for a clip for the gun.

When Jeremy realized he wouldn't survive the situation, he took out his phone and started sending his wife some texts. Even though he was without service, he still wanted to make sure he had said his farewell.

"What do you do when you're all messed up like that?" Jeremy asked.

In the messages, which were only revealed to UNILAD, Jeremy expressed his affection for both his wife and their daughter.

"Whoever finds this please let my wife know I tried to make it," one reads. "But there is [no] chance, that bear really [f***ed] me up."

In another text, Jeremy wrote: "I am pretty sure this is the end. I am very tired and I feel like I am going to pass out. If I do I won't wake up."

Jeremy sent the messages and took the only action he could think of. He tried to kill himself by turning the pistol on himself.

However, the pistol did not fire.

That was, in Jeremy's memory, "a little strange." "I then pushed it farther away and fired the gun once more. And it really did go off... At that moment, I made the decision to at least try to escape."

The father gave up on trying to return to society and instead made his way to a path that was more openly marked and more likely to lead to his discovery.

He estimates that he fell "probably 100 times" while walking "like a zombie," and eventually he lost his balance and fell 200 feet into a drainage basin.

At the bottom, he ran into rocks and was "pretty mangled and messed up."

He said, "That hurt a lot." I had trouble moving.

Jeremy "gave up" in pain and exhaustion. He took out his phone to start some music because all he wanted to do was go to sleep.

Rather, he received "Baby Shark." Just when you assume the situation couldn't possibly get worse.

But the music ended up being Jeremy's lifeline. It was the tune he had been listening to the night before, the one he and his wife had chosen to play for their daughter on her "rough night."

"I don't know if it was the song playing on repeat, or just thinking about [my wife and child], but I started to crawl up the drainage on the other side. I managed to crawl up and get back onto the trail," Jeremy said.

He gave himself small goals, just attempting to reach the next rock or tree. He came across a camp on the trip that he had always known was inhabited because he always went to the woods. In an effort to get help, he opened the two tents there, but nobody was there.

Jeremy wrote a note with his name and an explanation of what occurred to the residents after discovering paper and a pen at the scene.

Knowing he was dripping with blood, he scribbled, "Sorry about the mess."

After being abandoned to continue his trip, Jeremy didn't reach a location he recognized until about six hours after his attack: two rocks on the path, which indicated that he was about a mile from his truck.

Aiming for "the light spot in the center" of the darker spruce trees that he knew lined the road despite only being able to make out blurred shapes and light with his damaged eyes, he got into his car and drove 20 kilometers to a lodge for assistance.

A child could be heard saying, "Grandma, someone is trying to play a prank!" as Jeremy stumbled up to the lodge.

The youngster had no idea that he wasn't a "zombie," but the adults were able to tell him was real. Jeremy gave the guests at the lodge the assurance that he was "fine" and asked them to maintain their cool and call an ambulance because he was afraid they would "freak out."

Jeremy was aware of the severity of his wounds because he had been "mauled by a bear," but the panic didn't begin to set in until he got to the hospital and the staff started "freaking out." Prior to his wife visiting him, he requested that physicians cover his face, claiming that it was "all skull" and had "no skin."

Even after he had partially recovered from the attack's bodily injuries, Jeremy had mental health problems for a very long time. Due to his lack of sleep and PTSD flashbacks, something as easy as emptying an ice tray was enough to transfer him back to the woods.

Jeremy didn't experience a breakthrough in his treatment until a little over a year ago, during a session of Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), which involves the patient mentally reliving a traumatic event and approaching it in a new manner.

He slept through that night without experiencing any nightmares for the first time since returning home from the assault.

Since then, Jeremy has returned to those same woods and has even come across bears, fortunately never as close as that day in 2017.

"When you set mini goals, you can achieve incredible things," he began.

"Family comes first. [And] asking for psychiatric help is not a sign of weakness. It's a strength. I mean, guys are always supposed to be all tough and look after the family. But when you're not mentally fit, you can't do that. So ask for help."

One year after the accident, Jeremy was naturally "pretty nervous" the first time he went back into the woods. However, he finally experienced a "good feeling" about returning, realizing that he had survived and was still alive.

Jeremy has further detailed his experiences in a memoir, titled Mauled: Lessons Learned from a Grizzly Bear Attack, which is available to buy now.