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Warning: This article contains graphic images and video which some readers may find distressing.
Shayne Burke was on his honeymoon when he had a near-fatal encounter with a mother grizzly bear that caused him to record a chilling message for his loved ones.
Not many people can say they endured a bear attack, and fewer can stake claim to having survived one.
Since the turn of the 21st century, 38 people have died at the paws of grizzlies in North America – six of those fatalities came in Wyoming, US, where the 36-year-old was visiting with his wife Chloe Burke when he happened upon a 300lb brown bear on May 19, last year.
However, unlike others, the Massachusettsan was able to escape the ordeal with his life – and despite being mauled and thrown around by the beast, he remarkably was only bed-bound in hospital for one day before being discharged.
Newly-weds Shayne and Chloe Burke were on their honeymoon exploring Wyoming last year (Shayne Burke)
The grizzly didn’t hit any of the army reservist’s arteries, so he concedes that he was ‘super, super fortunate’ in that respect, but he suffered a broken shoulder as well as a ‘ton of real superficial, butt-deep wounds’ – which miraculously weren’t infected as he crawled away from the scene.
Although, their honeymoon was all but over just eight days into it – with the pair having planned to do a tour of the national parks in the west of America.
Burke, who works for the US Department of Defense, told UNILAD: “I was up in the Tetons on my honeymoon, but it was more like an adventure trip – a three-week trip that my wife and I were on.
“So basically, we had done a little bit of research where we could locate what’s called a great gray owl, which is a species of owl I’ve never seen in the wild. So I really wanted to and our research put us up on Signal Mountain.”
The 36-year-old was exploring the Grand Teton National Park in hope of spotting a rare great gray owl when his near-fatal encounter took place (Shayne Burke)
The bird-spotter explained how his wife ended up walking back to the car after around a half-mile walk, and he continued on, but after hiking for an hour or so he decided he needed to get back to his wife.
However, looking at his GPS, Burke noticed that he could beeline it through the woods to save time, instead of following the trail around it.
“So I opted to just, you know, beeline through the woods. As I was going through the woods I was making noise and trying to do things that would prevent an attack or situation where I run into a bear, but unfortunately, I was just moving really, really fast,” he recalled.
“After a little while, I ended up, unfortunately, stumbling upon a grizzly cub. The cub was running away from me, my first response was to just take my bear spray out and get ready – just in case the mother was around.
“In the process of that happening, the mom made herself known, and she was only 15 feet at most away from me, and then it just all happened so fast.”
Immediately after the attack, Burke recorded a message to his loved ones. Watch it here:
Detailing the horrific attack and mauling that ensued, Burke said: “As soon as I kind of locked eyes with her, she was almost on top of me, and so that’s when I reacted in the defensive way – which is, get on your belly and lay down on the ground and try to play dead.
“She tackled me, biting my shoulder, breaking it. Then she started ravaging my legs and just biting me, biting me, and it was like, you know, picking me up, throwing me – but she never ripped chunks out of me like she could have.
“So after a while, when she was biting my legs, she went for my head, and because I was laying like this [with his hands and arms covering his head], and I still had the bear spray in my hand, she ended up biting the bear spray, my hand and my arm, which is what stopped the attack, because she bit the can.”
As the grizzly went to bite Burke’s head it bit down on the bear spray which in turn exploded in its mouth (Shayne Burke)
He continued: “The can contents exploded all over her, all over me. She ran away towards the road – which was the direction I was going, and they were going as well. So I got up, looked at the direction she was going, and I just had the instinct to run the opposite direction.
“So I ran back into the woods further, because this attack happened only about 500 yards away from the road, and so I ran about 200 yards back up the mountain. You know, I had to crawl over fallen trees, under fallen trees, running straight up a hill.”
Burke explained that the National Park Service (NPS) never tracked the grizzly down, although they did swab him for its DNA to see if the beast had attacked a hiker before – but those tests are still pending.
He concedes that he was simply ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ and that the bear was ‘acting in a natural capacity’, and so NPS is just going to ‘let the bear be a bear’, as it was just defending her cub from a perceived threat.
After the bear spray repelled the beast in an unconventional way, Burke crawled over and under fallen trees to get as far away as possible from it (Shayne Burke)
“So, how do you survive a bear attack?” I ask Burke.
“Essentially, there are two things – the biggest thing that contributed, in my opinion, to my survival was doing my research on where I was and what I was doing, understanding the risks involved, getting to the areas – and the national parks do a really good job at informing visitors about the risks and how to react,” Burke explained.
“So, essentially what I mean by that is, on the trailhead there’s a big bulletin board, and it tells you, ‘hey, there’s bears here. If you get attacked, this is how you should react’ – and I pretty much did that to a tee, and I’m still alive because of that, for sure.
“Having a deterrent – even though I didn’t use it in the most traditional sense – I don’t recollect whether or not I got to spray it at all, but having that with me, it did end up being what contributed to my survival.”
Incredibly, Burke was only hospitalized for one day before being discharged (Shayne Burke)
He added: “So that, and then just having some basic understanding of first aid and how to render care for yourself – because at the end of the day, you are your first responder.”
Yes, on trails where grizzlies are known to frequent, the NPS detail what you should do if a brown bear starts attacking you.
It stresses: “Cover your head and neck with your hands and arms. Lay flat on your stomach, and spread your legs apart. Keep your pack on, it will help protect you during an attack.
“Stay still and don’t make any noise – you’re trying to convince the bear that you aren’t a threat to it or its cubs. Do not get up right away because the bear may still be in the area. Wait several minutes until you are sure that the bear is gone.”
Although the guidance differs for bears acting in a predatory manner – in that case, it adds: “Fight back with everything you have.”
How I Survived is a UNILAD series detailing stories of survivors.
Warning: This article contains content which some readers may find distressing.
An audio recording revealed the final moments of bear enthusiast ‘Grizzly Man’ and his partner before they were eaten by a brown bear.
Documentary filmmaker Timothy Treadwell – a.k.a. ‘Grizzly Man’ – spent 13 years visiting Alaska to see and study the animals.
Alas, the 46-year-old and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard’s visit to Katmai National Park in October 2003 would mark their last trip and final experience with a bear.
Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Larry Van Daele explained at the time an ‘audio recording’ was made ‘during the actual bear attack’ – Treadwell often recording his interactions with the animals for documentary purposes.
The audio recording reportedly lasted ‘for about six minutes’ and begins with Treadwell investigating a bear that came into the camp he and Huguenard had set up at around ‘twilight’ and when it was ‘raining very hard at the time’, Wolf Song News reports.
However, the sound of rain soon gives way to the sound of the bear attacking Treadwell.
Timothy Treadwell (Lionsgate Films)
Van Daele says you can hear the bear enthusiast ‘call for help,’ Huguenard immediately unzipping the tent and becoming ‘very upset’.
“At her urging, he ‘plays dead.’ It sounds like the bear then retreated for a couple minutes but returned,” Van Daele continues. “It again went after him, and he begged her to hit it with something. She in turn screamed for him to fight. The audio ends with his sounds no longer evident and her screams continuing.”
National Park Service rangers later revealed they found ‘human remains and clothing’ in the stomach of a 28-year-old brown bear they killed.
Authorities confirmed the remains to be that of Treadwell and Huguenard.
Van Daele said: “What caused this individual bear to kill and eat humans is unknown. It was very old but not in remarkably poor condition.”
However, he has a theory.
An audio recording captured the moment the bear attacked the couple (Lionsgate Films)
But why did the bear attack?
Well, despite noting it’s ‘somewhat risky to speculate’ and no one will ever know ‘exactly what happened,’ Van Daele believes the old bear had ‘been hanging around the areas getting the last fish of the season’ when he realized there was ‘little else available to eat’, and so walked along a ‘major bear trail’ in a bid to put on some ‘more fat for the winter’.
When the bear walked by Treadwell’s tent, Van Daele proposes he encountered the documentary maker, ‘reacted and either bit him and/ or hit him’.
“When he ‘played dead,’ the bear left, but as is often the case, when Mr. Treadwell started moving again, and/or Ms. Huguenard came to his aid, the bear returned,” the expert added. “At this time, for some reason, the bear killed and ate him. I suspect that Ms. Huguenard’s screams, which sound eerily like a predator call, may have prompted the bear to return and kill her.
“He then cached her body to be eaten later.”
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact The Compassionate Friends on (877) 969-0010.
Animal trainer Stephan Miller was filming a promotional video when his play-wrestling with a bear took a turn for the worst.
The 39-year-old was at his cousin’s animal training center – named Randy Miller’s Predators in Action – located in the San Bernardino Mountains, east of Los Angeles, when he attempted to perform a wrestling stunt with a five-year-old bear named Rocky.
Stephan wasn’t working as a trainer at the time of the filming of an advertisement video at the center, having worked there for several years before taking a break.
However, as a result of his experience with bears and previous experience, Randy called upon his help to film the promo.
Rocky the bear had already been trained to wrestle humans and had acted in 2008 release Semi-Pro, wrestling Randy – who was a body double for Will Ferrell in the movie.
The 7.5ft tall bear, weighing 700 pounds, had been trained to become ‘playful’ ‘on cue’ Randy explained to TODAY.com. Alas, Randy told ShareNow.com despite the training and Stephan having ‘bonded’ with the bear – ‘talking to him and hanging out’ – and ‘all the protocols having been taken’ the filming didn’t go to plan.
He continued: “We brought the bear out, we got the bear next to him and the bear was supposed to start out next to him and then they would start the staged attack – the bear was supposed to take him out.
Rocky the bear weighed 700 pounds (National Geographic Wild)
“The bear basically, I think, caught him off guard.”
Rocky recalled it all happening ‘so fast,’ Rocky ultimately biting Stephan in the ‘vulnerable spot’ of his neck.
Randy and the rest of the team tried to ‘stop the bear’ using pepper spray, it only taking ‘a matter of seconds’ to get Rocky away from Stephan.
Unfortunately even in that time, it ‘was too late,’ as a post mortem revealed that Stephan died within minutes of being bitten.
Paramedics arrived at around 3:00pm but were unable to re-vive Stephan Miller, the Associated Press reported at the time.
The bear (not pictured) had bitten a ‘vulnerable spot’ of Stephan’s neck, resulting in his death (Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The incident was investigated by the state Department of Fish and Game and Occupational Safety and Health Administration, who refused to rule on whether the bear would need to be euthanized.
After campaigning from animals rights groups, it was decided Rocky’s life would be spared but he wouldn’t be able to work in TV and film anymore or have contact with anyone but his trainers.
He was later cleared to work again before being moved to an animal sanctuary in California.
Miller reflected he didn’t ‘blame the animal’ given the work they do seeing them actively put themselves in ‘vulnerable positions’, and Hollywood filmmaker Nick Palumbo resolved: “Stephan was my best friend. Anybody who killed him I would want to kill, but I don’t believe the bear meant to hurt him.”
