“I remember everything because I never lost consciousness.” Wesley Perkins, 65, still bears the scars from a grizzly bear attack that changed his life more than a decade ago while hunting near the village of Council in his US state of Alaska. An attack that cost him part of his face and for which he was hospitalized for several months. On camera, “Wes,” as his friends call him, told his story for amateur videographer Donnie Rose’s YouTube channel, broadcast by Newsweek.
This May 16, 2011, there are three who will participate in the hunt: Wesley Perkins, his friend Dan Stang and his son, Edward. All three are experienced hunters, even in the risky specialty of bear hunting. Outside, it is snowing a little and the sky is “cloudy”.
“We saw this bear in the distance on the hill and it was quite impressive,” recalls the hunter.
“I lost my teeth, my tongue, my jaw”
The three men then begin their hunt and head up the hill they saw the bear on, but quickly lose sight of it. The hunter does not then suspect that the animal is really crouching in a hole about twenty meters away. He only realizes this when the grizzly appears and charges at it. Within seconds, he is on the ground, helpless.
“I felt the teeth of his wide jaw move from one ear to the other. She was tearing and tearing again (…). I turned face down [et] I felt his claws on my back. I couldn’t breathe,” the man says.
“I had to clear my airway because I had mud here,” he says, showing what’s left of his mouth. “My face was totally destroyed. I lost my teeth, my tongue, my jaw.”
“I must have saved Wesley’s life”
Meanwhile, his friend Dan Stang grabbed his gun: “I walked up to the bear shooting,” he explains. “My son was a bit taken aback, but he had seen everything that had just happened, so he came back to us. At that moment, the bear turned and started attacking me. Edward opened fire.”
The bear is hit and then moves away from its target. Hurt, he walks away and lies down showing signs of weakness. He will die from his injuries a bit later. Dan Stang already ran to his friend to help him.
“I flipped Wesley over and ripped his whole face off. He had a big hole in it, but it was unbelievable because there was so little blood and he was conscious. So I flipped him over and I said, ‘You’ve got to stay put, keep your head up.'” head in the snow,'” recalls Dan Stang.
The hunter then runs to Council’s village to retrieve a radio and contact emergency services. A helicopter was quickly dispatched to the scene and Wesley was transported to Nome Regional Hospital for emergency treatment before being transferred to the hospital in Seattle, Washington, in the northwestern United States, more than 3,000 kilometers away.
“I probably saved Wesley’s life and my son saved mine,” shares Dan Stang.
Grizzly skin became a trophy
Hospitalization lasts three months, time to rebuild the victim’s face. His jaw is partially reconstructed “from the fibula of my left leg” (a leg bone). She couldn’t get her tongue back and everything he eats “goes through the blender.” Despite everything, the hunter trusts his happiness to be alive and to have “a family that loves me and good friends” after this ordeal.
“Today I can do almost everything I used to do except sing karaoke,” she laughs.
As a symbol, the brown bear that attacked him is today a simple animal skin found on the wall of his room. “You can see some scars” on the fur, he tells the camera before showing the animal’s paws: “You see what these claws are capable of!” He also continues to “hunt bears and other bugs.”
Having become a symbol, he regularly communicates with families of people attacked by bears. “I tell them that it takes time, it is done in stages. In the end, he will have something like a normal life.”
Source: BFM TV
