#1
29-year-old Alexey Koptyakov from Russia is a very kind man and a very good doctor, but he has a very dangerous hobby: hunting. No one could've imagined the terrible consequences it would bring.
#2
One autumn day in November, Alexey was looking forward to going hunting with his favorite dog. There was enough snow on the ground for the enthusiastic young hunter to try and track rabbits using their footprints.
#3
In a sad twist of fate, Alexey ended up meeting a very different animal that hadn't yet fallen into its winter hibernation. "I looked up and saw a bear. I tried to shoot, but my gun had snow in it," recalled Alexey. "Suddenly, he jumped on me. I used my gun to hit him over the head, but nothing helped. He continued to lunge at me, clawing and biting me."
#4
"I heard my bones cracking. I felt like he'd been biting me for ages already. I didn't think I was going to survive, I accepted my death. That's when I remembered my family and started trying to write a message in blood, in the snow for my parents: 'Mom and dad, please forgive me, I love you.' I hoped if someone found me, they would pass on my message. At that moment, the bear stopped attacking. We were about 300 meters away from the highway, so I assume something frightened him, and he ran off into the forest. I touched my face my chin was somewhere on my chest, just hanging there, bones were protruding out of my body. I was probably in shock, because I didn't feel any pain. I couldn't see anything everything was red before my eyes."
#5
These words clearly express the terror he felt. Badly injured, Alexey managed to crawl the 300 m to the highway, where a driver picked him up and took him straight to the hospital. Colleagues, who worked with Alexey at the hospital, couldn't recognize him at first the lower part of the doctor's face was torn into three pieces. He couldn't speak.
He was rushed into surgery, hanging on to life by a thread. "We'd never seen a case like this before. It was only after I pieced together all three parts of his face that I recognized my friend," said surgeon Sullaimon Fayzullov.
#6
Having survived the operation, Alexey remained in the hospital for quite a long time, fighting off one infection after another. Each infection could have taken his life. Today, Alexey is still recovering from his ordeal, but he says, "I miss the forest very much, it's like a state of the soul for me. But I'm sure I will reconsider my attitude towards hunting!" This real-life Russian "Revenant" says he looks forward to gradually being able to get back to his normal life.
#7
Most people aren't able to survive more than a few minutes in a fight against a grown bear. Alexey was lucky to survive. He went back and filmed this video of where the attack took place:
Even though Alexey thought those were the last seconds of his life, he was still thinking about his loved ones and tried to write his last words to them in the snow. This experience has changed him, not only physically, but also mentally, and he says hewill never hunt again. His family is happy that he's with them. There are still multiple operations that Alexey will have to undergo before his face is back to the way it was, but thank goodness he survived!