00:00:12 Speaker 1: I guess I grew up on a Hey everybody, welcome to episode one twenty six of The Hunting Collective. I've been and Brian and we were back Phil back in the studio. That's right. Hey, yeah, we made it happen. It was last minute. It was last minute. But you're holding a special little microphone. Well, we took a couple of mics out of the studio. Uh, ones in my house and the other is at your house. And um so I had improvised this is my own personal Mike good Good. I thought maybe it might have been a sanitary reason why you have your own personal mic share mis in this time of Corona. No, nothing, alright. Joe Ferronato, Hey, buddy, Hey, how you doing. Oh I'm ready to ready to get into what we're gonna talk about. We also have Sam Longeran. Hello, Samuel. You guys ready. I was born ready, always ready, Joe ready. It seems that Phil is not ready. I'm not to talk about what we're gonna talk I'm sure he's not. Yeah, Well, we're gonna talk about revolves a lot around images and video. I mean, it really is the kind of the impetus for the story and don't look at it, Phil, Phil is trying to sneak a peek. Okay, so where to begin here. It's gonna be uh, it's kind of a long and convoluted, twisting, turning tail that we're going to try to tell you, um and we'll try to explain it's importance before we get into it. But before that, Phil, can you look at this image? Look great at that? See that fellow? Yeah, might see it? Yeah, you see it. His name is Glenn Bond. That's that's a human that's a human being. It's a real man. His name is Glenn Bond. What you're looking at their Phil is is the direct aftermath of a grizzly bear attack when the Denially Highway in two thousand sixteen, Glenn was attacked by I think a nine foot grizzly bear, which is uh, Joe, you can you can confirm a big, big, big, big big. We're gonna this isn't. What you're about to hear is not just the story of a grizzly bear attack. We've done that before here multiple times, will continue to do that because they are their life or death struggles. But we also just we love to love them. We absolutely as a culture infatuated with the bear attacks, the violence of them, the predatory nature sometimes of them. They're also, like I said, some of the most compelling stories we can present as a show. But this one, Sam, has more layers to it, doesn't not, It has a lot more layers to it. Ben. Uh. A couple of weeks ago, when you first reached out to me about this and I started looking into it, I wound up diving into the depths of the internet for about seven hours straight until about one in the morning. It's Uh, it's shockingly complex and I still I still don't know what I think about it completely honest. Yeah, we've been working on this for like I said, for about two weeks. Um. You know, we've we've been doing the best investigative journalism as we can to try to bring this full story. And it's not not just because there was a bear attack. There are other elements to this story that go to as I already mentioned, our infatuation with bear attacks and how the internet, social media message boards, click baity websites treats treat a story that has sensationalist tendencies like this one we're about to tell Um, that's a big important part of this. Another important part of this is like what is the truth? Why? How do what do we believe? Online? What do we what do we find to be credible? And how do we and how do those things get told? But then maybe the most important here is one family's strange, strange to ride over the past what six years? There's so there's a lot of layers to the Bond family story and there's some characters in here that will go through this may Phil take awhile because there's a lot to it. So you gotta are you ready to kind of you never? You don't know anything about this? Right? You know much about this? Not really? No, I mean I've heard some of the interview with Brett um well good and so all we're gonna need from you, feel is just to react, make you know, any any kind of noise you feel like or anything like that that you need to do. Okay, I should have brought in the Honest Sound book. So this is this will be a little bit different podcasts. I have a pile of emails, very interesting emails, probably fifty emails I'd love to read on this show. But we're gonna stick to this story right now. Next week, we'll talk to about the THHC Book Club. We'll get some reactions to I'm sure this story and to Shane Mahoney last week, and some other things that people I've been asking. But for now, we got plenty to do to get to telling this story. UM Brett Bond, thirty three year old hunting guy out of Wasilla, Alaska, is our guest today. We're gonna hear him coming up in a little bit once we kind of set the set the stage. The stage is gigantic, so it's gonna take us a while to set it up for you. But Brett Bond is the man kind of at the middle of all of this, and we've already mentioned his father, seventy seven year old hunting god, retired hunting god, Glenn Bond. And where this all kind of starts. Um, like many modern bear attacks stories seemed to this starts on social media and in multiple ways. So we're gonna have to jump back and forth through time with this. So you're gonna we're gonna spoke. We're gonna start in March. Now, many of you listening may have seen the images that we're gonna I'm gonna try to describe to you. I'm gonna let these other guys try to also describe the images to you. You may have seen them. They got shared. I don't know how many times it got shared to me, probably fifty Um right when they first were posted on March twenty and then our our metiator inbox, Joe, I know you run that. I'm sure that was flooded with with links to this story, so it was shared around. I think everybody in the office at the time sent this to me. Um. My first initial reaction was fake, Sam similar I I think so, But then I then I looked closely at it and just wondered how or why it could be fake. But that was certainly my initial reaction, my initial reaction because we we did the preface all this, why you would think something like this is fake? And we'll tell you what we're We're trying to describe what we're talking about. Certainly have a place for you to go and see these images of course my social media and on the meat eaters as well, once we get into this, But what why they're fake or why they could have been fake? In my mind, we had a story about at a Russia in twenty nine. I would have been what last fall, Sam, you remember this story. So this story comes out that a man had been cashed in a beared then for over a month by a grizzly bear or a Russian brown bear. But it was in fact, and there was video of him sitting up throughout like through this like he was skinnies could possibly be. He looked like a you know, he looked like the crypt keeper. He was near death. And there was this video of him kind of sitting up and moving and opening his eyes. He looked like it looked like a corpse. But what you would see is that he was actually alive. And there's the many sources at the time, any major news sources from Britain and here in the States worse, we're saying this. We're reporting this as as a real story and then using local news sources from Russia as a way to buttress stories they were talent. Turns out, Sam, it was fake, right, it was. Yeah, And you can look back on Spencer New Hearts reporting on that he did. He did a good job, actually a heck of a lot better than many of those tabloid nudes news sources you mentioned. But I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of inconsistencies with the story, and I think it I think maybe a traditional or well, you know, these tabloid nude sources may not care a lot because you know, they kind of deal insulacious content all the time. But anyone with the slightest inkling about bear ecology and behavior, I saw a lot of issues with that story right away, first and foremost being that bears don't really cash meals that often, certainly not things that are alive um and certainly not for the length of a month inside their own debt. So it was pretty it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that it was concocted. I don't know if we ever did find out where that video came from, because that was certainly an emaciated man who was very near death. UM. So there's in terms of like what a hoax would be online and why this story sets up like this, that they're the images are shocking. They don't seem real. They don't seem like they could be real. Nor does the video of Glenn Bond that will describe you in a second. They don't seem real. So the first my experience as well, that the video of the man supposedly in the bear den that survived. The bear den didn't seem real, but the video was compelling enough to make me look more than once at it, and it shocked me into wanting to read more about it. And that's kind of in essence what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with some very gruesome, salacious videos and imagery that would drive a lot of people's interest right. Interest online drives clicks, clicks, his engagement, engagement means money. All of those things are involved in the story as well. From from this March twentie post on Instagram that I would just describe to the origin of some of the things we'll talk about, where this becomes in my mind an urban legend up to the point where we're trying to tell you the real story on this today's podcast and also an article we're working on. But but to start, just kind of start at the end here a little bit. Brett Bond has an Instagram account at b b b Alaskan. I was first introduced to it by Sam Sohol who sent me a link to it as many as I said many other folks did at the time, saying what the fuck look at this? I flipped through the images. I think I can't look at that. I couldn't even look at them. I couldn't get through then, much like Phil right now can't quite seem to take along hard look. I hadn't watched the video until last week because I had plenty of opportunities to. I just couldn't. It's that gruesome. I'm kind of surprised that Phil was able to hang on to his birthday cake lunch lunch. We were talking about are we working out there? Give me that not expect to come back up. Sorry. Yeah, we were talking about are we working out during the quarantine? And Phil said he's doing the opposite. Sam asked, well, what could be the opposite of working out? Phil explained pizza and cake for lunch, because the opposite of working out, And that satisfied my question. Yea, And he was very like, oh, thank you. Yes, it was left over from a birthday party. You know. I'm just I'm not letting anything go to waste. That's waste, not whatnot. That's your your body recycling, plant sustainability. That's important. So I don't know how to transition out of that, but I'm gonna do it this. I'm we're writing an article for the Mediator dot com right now. We have about thirty five words. It's probably end up being about five thousand words. And for those that don't count words and articles, that's fucking long. It's real long. Um. Sorry to just give you kind of the breakdown when when Bond posted these images on March twenty, he posted seven images, various types, but there's a few important images. The lead image, which is very important, was a man, his father, Glenn, sitting on a snowmobile with a giant bore grizzly bear kind of laying at it, laying beside in the snow besides the snow machine and his father kind of he had what looked like a puffy jacket and pants on the hood pulled up around and you can just kind of see that his face, his different shades of red. Can't really tell. It's a very intriguing image in itself. You just want to zoom into it immediately. You can't really tell what's going on in his face, but you can tell it's probably not great because it's just a literally like a sheet of red and it's and it's poor, it's poor, um, poor quality image. It's it's very pixelated, and so looking at that one, you certainly could see how people's flags would would go up. Yeah, in the in this day and age of I mean, we're we're very well trained now to question things we see on the internet and just you know, in general. So I can see I can see how some some people responded to that and force wondered how it could possibly be true. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I was gonna say the same thing because looking at that one, I definitely felt like, oh, this could possibly be fake, for sure, for sure, And and again it's a healthy skepticism at play here. We had it, the three of us had it, investigating it up until we had like triple confirmation that it was that it was real. This is after the recording you're gonna hear with Brett Bond where I interviewed Brett. This is a week after that, until I finally decided this dude's telling the truth. I told him, I told him why we interviewed him. I said, we've got to go find the truth. For your sake and for the sake of of our show. We gotta go and you know, do our best. Um, Big j journalism here and find and find out the truth about this, because it became a lot more than just these images. But the first image we described there, the second image is the one that gets a little like it's a little messy. It's the is a photo of Glenn Bond kind of laid down in the snow shortly after the attack the bear attack. His flesh, flesh and and skin or peeled away from his skull. Best I can describe it, You can kind of see he hasn't you can't see any definition of his nose, His mouth is gone, his lips are gone. You can see through like shards of flesh that his teeth are there. Um, he has one eyeball protruding out of fairly bloody mass of flesh and limb like ligaments and things that are there. His scalp is laid back in a particularly gruesome way. Yeah, And and I think, uh, you know, to add more context here, we may have used the kind of the shorthand that his face was quote unquote ripped off, And I don't think that'd be necessarily accurate. If you're if you're trying to picture this, it's almost as if a very large grizzly paw. You imagine it on your face, starting at the forehead and going straight down the nose and just and basically parting the face and flaying it out towards both sides. So it's not necessarily off. It's clearly still there, but um not where it uh it is usually located, peeled back and and hanging. It's gruesome. It's gruesome. It's gruesome. It really does kind of look like a special effects image that you might see out of Hollywood, you know, when when you're watching a show like Game of Thrones or you're watching you know, even The Revenant like that these this it looks like something that may have been constructed on a movie set. But we can assure you we've done the work. We know as much as anybody that that wasn't actually there with the two of these guys. Um that is Glenn Bond and he was his face was you know, forever changed by a grizzy beer. And so those are the first two images, and the reason why they're important is because we're you know, I think it's important to put in or to add contact in those images. He's still conscious and propped up like by his own power. He's up on his elbow sitting there. Yeah, we're gonna try to dance around the actual story because Brett tells it well, and I don't want to tell it for Brett, but that's a that's a big part of this. And as we go through this, you'll there's a lot of points of reflection where this guy could have died given a millimeter or centimeter in one direction, or given you know, a snow machine running at gas or the engine breaking, given a pilot of a plane taking this direction or that direction, given a surgeon doing this or that. Um with his medical care afterwards, there's a million things that could have happened that would have either caused a loss of Glen Bond's life or would have not allowed him to recover in the way that will explain that he did. And so I think one of the interesting parts of this story is exactly that that this man lived. He's a tough, tough man, maybe the toughest you'll ever you'll ever run into given this scenario, but ut um, he is essentially, as you hear Brett report in the interview, up and talking and worried. Brett talks about in the interview when he reaches his father after um he finally gets to him after the attack is over. His father is is worried about his wrist, his wrist hurts, and he's just obviously couldn't see his own face. I'm sure he could feel. I'm not Glenn Bond has never spoken publicly. That's one thing we can start by saying, you won't hear from Glenn and this podcast or anywhere else that we report on this story. But I'm imagine if you asked him to describe what it felt like, it would be quite the interesting response. Well, and you've got to imagine that he was in in well, I mean, I'm certain that he was in shock. So, you know, people respond strangely, especially when there's that much adrenaline going. So it's hard. It's hard. It's hard to know. So this this post happens. There's other images thereone weel a couple of Marrion a little bit, but this post happens. It kind of sets off a bit of a viral thing. Brett has at b B B B b Alaskin. He's got a couple hundred followers, eight hundred followers or so at the time that he posts by the time this is all over, this thing has gone viral. He's got twenty thousand more followers. The post has been liked every hundred forty times. It's been shared all over the internet. UM it becomes the most talked about bear attacks, certainly of quarantine. UM it certainly has so many elements to it that it might be the most talked about bear attack at some time that I've seen, um for for many reasons. But that's that's kind of what happened in March that kind of triggered us to be looking into this. I sent Bread a message and said, Brett, um boy, I'd love to hear about this. I would love for you to come on the show and tell his story. Have you told it anywhere else? What the hell is going on? You know? Ask him all these questions. He just came back with, what's a podcast? Never heard one? So I sent him a couple of our podcasts. I said, here's what kind of what we do. I I feel like we could tell that you should tell the story, because man, a lot of people are talking about this. I'm only messaging you because i've you know, fifty sixty seventy fans of my show have have listeners of my show have reached out about this. Um, so I think we should tell the story. It took me to, to Brett's credit, about ten days to convince him, for lack of a better term, convince him to come and tell the story. He was wanted to listen to some more podcasts, wanted to think about it, wanted to to gauge the reaction a little bit more. Well, I finally reached out and we chatted and he said he would come on and tell the story. Now, at this moment, I thought just another bear attack podcast. In my mind, that this would just be him telling his story. It would be amazing, and we would share the images and we would go onto the next podcast. What I didn't know is what the hell was actually going on with the bear at act itself. But then also kind of all the things that orbited around the Bond family, Glen Brett. There, Brett's mother Lorraine Phillips, who you'll well, we'll tell you about here in a minute. UM let's just say, like when when this all happened. Um, when I first called you saying what did you think about this? I mean, I told you us that I think this is a this is a crazy story that we're gonna need to suss out. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't see it at first. Um, I was like, well, it's another it's another bear attack. You know, our our audience, our community loves bear attacks. So yeah, that's that's that's great. But then, you know, the the numerous allegations of the images being fake certainly caught my interest because you know, why would people be putting those out and also, you know, publicly commenting on on the bear attack. So and then and then we also started to find the images being ascribed to other bear attacks, and you know that certainly cast more doubt on their veracity. Man. And then you know, as as soon as you just as soon as you google into some of this, there's just a lot of webs and rabbit holes to take you down. And like I said, I just I kind of pass it, kind of dismissed it a little bit at first, like oh yeah, heck yeah, I'll help you with that if if you know, I take your word for it, because I have a lot of trust in you as a as a reporter. And I'm like, if he says this is a story, then great. And I was pretty busy at the time, but once I really had an opportunity to dive into it, I absolutely saw what you meant, Joe, because I felt like when I you know a lot of times you run into Frica, you can just write it. Just write it, and that's it. You have interview a couple of people. We call it in our business, we call it as told to and I as told two stories. Somebody tells you a story, you write what they said, and you kind of blend it all together with your own words, reporting there their statements. This started out as oh nice, as to a two stories. I even talked to Brett about that explained what an as told two is and explained that that's what I intended to do with his with take the podcast and turn it into an article, just kind of buttress the offering to make sure we tell the story. But at some point, really early on, and that's what I think when I called Sam and then talk to you, John'm like, this is gonna be how can I prove this is true? One? I want to prove this is true for Bread's sake, because I, like I said, I was skeptical, but then eventually I came to believe him. After I talked to him on this podcast. I came to believe what he was saying. So how am I going to prove this is true if I don't look at this part, this part, this part, this part in this part. And then when we did, I'm like, oh, ship, now I gotta go down this rabbit hole, this rabbit hole on this one. And every time we went down one, we we discovered some other kind of odd or amazing fact or statement from someone involved in this, and um, and then it becomes what it is now. Um, what I'm we're titling the article is bear attack turned Urban augened, the true story behind the gruesome images that shocked the Internet. I think that's, you know, maybe clicky ironically, but um, that's really what's going on here. Yeah. When we when we pick up this story on March twenty this year, we are four years into it. Once, something I found out pretty early from Brett. He's like, well, it happened four years ago, And I'm like, what how did we not hear about this? I've been doing this particular thing right and outdoor stories that I would have loved to have this four years ago, or any at any time during my career. Both of us were embroiled in all this same stuff four years ago. Yeah, and so the fact that it then it just like I said, as this thing built, you find these little things out and it just feels like something more is going on and growing here. And so at that time, we're all working on this and a couple of things happened. One Brett had told me up prior to recording this that he felt like his parents were off limits. He didn't want he was sharing the images, he was talking, he was telling his story, he felt, you know. And and at the time I felt rightly so that that he was telling the story and that was it, and there wasn't any need to talk to his his father. His father wasn't going to talk, and there's no need to talk to his mother. So we kind of took that for what it was. Um. But the first thing that you find it happened four years ago when you google it. I mean, how many bar attacks to have we talked about on this show and that you guys have covered. Joe, you wrote all about a lot of bear attacks over this last fall for our website. These things happen and then within the week, days, sometimes even hours of them happening. Their reports out there local media usually first, and it kind of trickles into whereever it's gonna play out on a on a more national, regional level. There was nothing about this. Comparatively, there were some things, but I mean almost nothing about this attack. But yeah, there were there was pretty much I think there was nothing focusing on it. It was on a secondary information talking about when when we're talking about another bear attack, Yeah, exactly, And and that's kind of kind of what happens and somewhat explains it away for me, is that it actually was mentioned in a variety of relatively um highly regarded publications in the United States and the United Kingdom. Um. But it that that it kind of ended up playing second fiddle to another attack that happened in Alaska three days later that was slightly somehow sexier. Forest Wagner was. It was leading a group of twelve students on you know, some some outing that was attacked by a bear. Professor at University of Alaska. That's um attacked by a bear three days after Glenn Bond was attacked. I've read the story. It's pretty straightforward. He he was attacked one of the stud it's called for medical assistance, He got medical assistance. He was mauled but lived, no need to you know. But there there's a lot of different bear attacks we could compare to this one, that this, this one happened to And Brett told me this, and I think he says this in the recording, that he felt they lucked out because that happened, right, and some of them. For you google of this bear attack, as we said, you'll find that it's you know, Barry, there's a Guardian article talking about the Wagner attack. About halfway through it just meant, oh, yeah, by the way, this guy is seventy seven year old guy Glenn Bond was also attacked in close proximity, and it doesn't even really say exactly how close these two attacks are. Yeah, And I mean, you think about a publication like the Guardian, You think about being in their news room that week, and some editors get gonna like would slap a reporter up the side of the face. Now we're not gonna do two articles about people getting attacked by bears in Alaska. Now it's a trend. Now this now this happened, and and we're going to talk about both of them. Collated and and it just it just so happened that they were that they were close in you know, in time. But Forrest Wagner, you know, had twelve people watch watching this and it was a professor at university and he talked about it. But but Glenn and Brett Bond did not talk about it and didn't and refused him to interview requests, and it just kind of faded away. And when when you said that to me, Ben, that that Brett thought that they lucked out would the other attack to kind of get rid of that media pressure, it put an alarm going off in my head. I was like, well, why did he think they looked out? What was the story behind that way and they want that attention. Yeah, we're gonna get into that too a little bit here what the backstory and that that that takes us in a whole different direction. But I think that's where you start to realize that this that we're gonna have to go a little bit deeper. You digging deeper and deeper and deeper into this. Talking to Brett, he's telling me that when he calls the state troopers, you'll hear in this in his story, his dad gets attacked. He his dad requests that he takes some photos and video. That's where we get they grewsome things we've described. Then they have to take the twent mile I'm pretty sure I'm right. Just looked at that twenty four miles. UM. Back to the lodge where they were stayingable Buck Creek Lodge, Alpine Creekpine Creek Lodge on the Dale Highway. Um, you're thinking of Buck Valley, Buck Valley, Queer bears a Buck Valley. We'll get to that. There's a lot of stuff to remember here. UM. And I was until three in the morning working on this last night. UM. And so we we learn that they take this journey to come back. And when he calls the state troopers, he just says exactly the least amount of detail that he can give. He doesn't even give his own name. He says, uh, Hunter, seventy seven year old Hunter was attacked by a bear and his hunting partners shot the bear off of him. And that's pretty much all you see in any of the media reports, not even his son. Do you have that audio pulled up there? There's one report from a local state trooper representative, and if Joe maybe find the name of the person talking. We're gonna hear, but it was like a radio report and you'll hear that. It's just kind of the bare bones. Um, I have it here for it. A man was attacked by a bear near the Dunale Highway over the weekend. Alaska State Trooper spokesman Tim to Spain says seventy seven year old Glen Bonn of Wasilla was bear hunting Friday afternoon near Miles when he was mauled by a grizzly. Reported to the troopers that the injuries were fairly significant. De Spain says the attacking bear was shot dead by another hunter. Bond was then driven to the Dunally Highway by snow machine, where he was flown by life mad to Anchorage. To Spain says friend of the victim, accompanied by Alaska Department of Fishing, Game and State Trooper representatives, returned to the attack site Saturday and retrieved the bear carcass. That's it, and if you read the stories, that's it. Um. So you might ask why why an earth would a family like this want to want to keep this quiet or or at least kind of only give the minimum amount of play to it in the media. It could be a lot of reasons. I asked Breath this specifically, UM, the other day, because as we're working on the story, I'm like, I just need to ask him specifically, why is it that you? Because he said I, you know, I just told him it was a hunting partner. I didn't want to give names or go any deeper. And he just responded to me. I asked me, and he's just responded because I'm a private person, that's his response. Um, there's a lot I think that is behind that that him and I have talked about, and him and I've talked about with his mom, Lorraine Phillips, Um that I'm comfortable sharing here, you know, but there is just just so folks listening. No, Like, we're sharing these folks stories, so we respect, you know, respect what they said, and respect how they would like this to be treated because it's their lives. And this is a freaking serious thing. I mean, this is a serious event that happened to Glenn Bond, and you know, it's it's on the folks covering this to do it in such a way, UM that people can get the truth they can learn from it might save someone's life, but they also deserve to know the real story behind something as a salacious as this. So when you get to a certain point in this story, there's a void created. We're gonna kind of explain how that void goat created. We know how the void got created. Got created because the Bonds didn't want anybody to know about this story or weren't willing to put it out there for the media. So there's a void. What is what's the other part of this Well, a couple of images, the ones we've already described, plus a third image get out online and kind of the wake of this story, they get out online. So now you have the family that's not talking about it, not telling the true story. You have a message board on the internet where three images, as far as I know, get laid out. One of them, two of them we've already described. The third one is a picture of Glenn Brett and a man named David Johnston standing posing nine days after the attack. This is where the ship gets it just starts to get crazy here if it isn't already nine days after the attack, there's a picture of David Johnston, the owner of Diamond d Custom Leather. It's a shop, I believe in Anchorage, saying that, right, there's three of them, Brett on the right and the center's dad on the left is David Brett is showing off this leather holster that he was wearing when he shot the bear off of his father and saved his father, which we may not have mentioned at that point that so this is key. So the three of them are standing there like, here you go, Phil, this is what this guy looks like nine days after the attack. Can you believe that it? That's unreal? It's like that they must have the greatest surgeons in the world. Okay, now, now, now, now let me now, let me give you another one. All that surgery you're seeing was performed without sedatives, without anesthesia, and without blood transfusions. So is this kind of why you brought up earlier that like it's very you'd rather not use the language. His face was ripped off because it was still hanging there, and it looks like they were able to put it back together pretty well. Kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a little bit. That's how it's semantics. At some level. His face wasn't where it should have been. It was kind of off to the side, however you describe it. But this is where we start to discover the amazing recovery here in this photo. But it's kind of the a dull discovery. When you look at this photo, you're looking at, oh my god, this guy. How no way? Brett shaped with me the time stamp of the image that was off his phone here, and I thought, no way, is this nine days? There's no possible way this is nine days. Other bar attack stories, we've looked at millions of dollars and years of surgery to put people's faces back on. I talked to a doctor friend of mine too and showed him that picture and I was like, nine days, and he's like, no way. Yeah, it's like there's no bruising, Like he looks like months months and months after in this photo, like he his eyes gone, his ear is gone. What would be I guess his left eye is gone. He has left eyes gone, and his right ear is reattached, but he's missing half of it. Half. He has has some scarring across the center of his forehead down to the bridge of his nose. There's bruising and swelling across his face. He's got a cast on his left hand, a wrap on his right hand wrist forearm, and he's looking at looking great, but considering the last photo, he's looking pretty great. Um, so this is like we discovered this part. Now the other thing we discover like his miraculous recovery, but we also discovered that this is kind of where this urban legend starts to grow. The void I talked about a minute ago where there's no nobody talking about reporting on this story. We've covered that. Now into the void enters these images. So there's there's two parts. One part the truth, ain't there? Second part crazy images floating around the internetal message boards we have yet too, we may by the time we publish our article find out exactly where these images were first posted. I don't know all that really matters. A message board, in my mind, is a message board in terms of their in depth reporting. But they got out, Yeah, they got out, and they got out from David Johnson. This is nine days later they went to Custom d leather shop. When the first time I got to talk to Lorraine, Philip Sprett's mom, she tells me that, yes, David Johnston and possibly his daughter who was also in the shop at the time. We're a part of Um, we got some images from Brett at the urging of Lorraine, his mother, she said to share some images with them. That would be nice that he shares those images, and at some point they put them on a message board. I don't know that it really matters what exact message board, but Lorraine and shop manager Mike Barrett both to my mind confirmed that that happens, right, Joe, because Joe talked to Mike Barrett. Yeah, at that at that time, Um, Mike did confirm that David Johnson or his daughter, one of them, who was basically running the media for the shop at that time, put it on some message where he wasn't aware. It's been four years, but I think we can skip that part and work around it and assume that those folks are telling us the truth. So those things get out, and then somewhere along the way this becomes a bigger thing because someone there's a lot of accusations, but someone takes these images and applies them to a man named Wes Perkins. Joey want tell us a little bit about West Perkins. Well that's where you started this whole thing with me, So you you called me right when this game here, like google Wes Perkins bear attack, see what comes up. And what came up was a story about a terrible bear attack where a guy got his face ripped off, and these images were attached to it. But the weird thing was these images weren't seen by anybody until and West Perkins attack happened. Inn and uh even in in your interview with Brett, he was in your conversations with Brett, he went back and said, yeah, people were commenting on my pictures of my dad when I posted that on Instagram saying hey, that's West Perkins. And and everybody was like, who saw these pictures beforehand? Were like, hey that's the guy, that's West Perkins. And people very strongly believed that Glenn Bon was West Perkins. They had three years to convince themselves this is this is West Perkins. There's a lot more we have to uncover in terms of the West Perkins part of this, but I will say what we did find. What I did find is that somewhere along the way and we're looking into this, we may never find out because it's it's just somebody has to admit to this or some some you know again deep in some message where someone made the connection, right, they take these salasious images that they're seeing for the first time in connect them to a bear story they've heard. Possibly, um, something they heard is very similar, and somehow something happens where these two things get connected. From there that gets conflated to this is West Perkins. My god, the West Perkins bear attack. Yeah. Well, and then West Perkins too. When that attack happened, there were there was a lot of coverage about it. I mean, he had what twenty two surgeries or something and millions of dollars worth of medical bills, and people knew about it. And then when somebody saw these photos, it wasn't hard to go, yeah, that's the dude who got his face ripped off, because even in those West Perkins articles, he says how he's a paramedic or or a nurse or something, and he says the fire chief a fire chief, yeah he yeah, he had to pull blockage out out of his airways and stuff because everything was torn apart and falling down and he was basically choking on himself. So everybody when they saw these photos, they were like, yep, that that has to be hims and so, but it wasn't just that it was on some message board you're talking about. We found instances on websites like wide Open Spaces, where it's pretty clear. We don't have confirmation from Wide Open Spaces or anything. The images have been removed from the site as they stand today. But the article that describes West Perkins starts with graphic on the and on the title goes and inside of the article is a picture of like a grizzly bear walking through a meadow, and so something has been removed. There's nothing graphic there. Something has been removed. And so I'm pretty comfortable saying that something someone reported on this somewhere. There's a website if you google it called American Shooting Journal, Joe, I got that right, American Shooting Journal, where this still exists. You can go read the story about West Perkins with a cropped out version of the diamond D photo. Not only does it still exist, it was published six days before Brett put his photos on Instagram, like it March four. Really, yeah, maybe it was updated, who knows? Or or yeah, maybe it was updated, but who knows. The last time stamp on there's March. So this is this is a part of the story that just goes to prove a lot of things. You know, one thing that I thought sum this up. I was looking at a site and there's a lot. There's the Twitter some like debunking Twitter pages that were after this trying to debunk the West Perkins story that was actually the Glen Bond photos. Um as early as seen, and then all the way up to there's multiple articles describing West Perkins bear attack that that have the Glenn Bond images. But also there's just straight up things like, um, I'll find it here. As I scroll through this, there's things like a site called fake oologist dot com that has a whole thing about grizzly bear attacks and on it true and not true, what's true and what's not true? And this is November one of the Commoners Rights. They post this, the post that Glen Bond images and so this is, you know, roughly four months before Brett Bond posted stuff on Instagram that started this whole thing that the commenter says, the use of special effects in the case of Wes Perkins overly brutal two thousand eleven grizzly bear attack seems quite apparent, as the effects used in the quote unquote crime scene imagery are too severe to believe on their own, particularly when related to the improbable narrative. Let that sink in for a minute. This dude is like, you know what's improbable, this narrative in these photos, Like, yep, they come to find out you're right, the conspiracy theorist blog comment or guy. So that like, that's where this had gotten to. It had gotten to this mixed up, weird presentation of the truth. Who was this person? And for some reason, somehow, all the way through these three and a half almost four years until Bonds at his side of the story, no one had looked into this. Sam, do you remember seeing anything online or someone looked into this story. Oh, I saw a lot of speculation, a lot of people who looked really closely at the image to try to find the touches of photoshop or something like that. But I didn't find I didn't find a single thing where somebody actually reached out to Brett or Glenn Bond to try to verify this. The story it was, it was all just that that can't be real. That I don't trust anything on the internet, and I don't trust anything I see on the news, And and because it was relegated to you know, kind of hunting and conspiratorial and a laugh skin message boards, ran into a lot of people who are very suspicious of a lot of things. Um, but nope, I didn't. I didn't find a single outlet that actually wanted to verify this, you know, from the horse's mouth, and I know that Joe and I and used to Sam. I read a lot of message boards comments, I read a lot of threads on articles. I read a lot of random Twitter feeds trying to find someone who was going to be like I was there, and in fact, we found a lot of people that were like I talked to a pilot that flew the guy, or I talked to a sled dog team guy who Drew happened to drive by. Like, there's a lot of people who were claiming to have knowledge of this that clearly just did not. And I think that just denotes how something becomes like an urban legend, where you know, there's this application of rumor and speculation to something so salacious as this. Yeah, then it kind of created a vacuum that he didn't do any interviews right after the attack. And it's also worth mentioning that he was out hunting for several weeks after the attack and may have been unavailable if reporters had reached out to him, but it doesn't sound like he returned their calls anyway. But you know, the nature abhorrors a vacuum, and I would I would suggest that the internet does too. So people basically had these these images and needed to ascribe them to something and just made up a bunch of stuff, but nobody really took the time to find out what the truth was. So I think that that actually wraps up kind of the what we'll call the urban legend part of the story, like why we had why We're getting to a point now where you're hearing the first account from Brett Bonn an audio of this and and a lot of the discovery that three of us did. And Phil is just sitting there just gripping his mic so he can barely hold it, hold it any so excited to hear this tale. Just soaking it in again. Ben, Yeah, this second, Thanks buddy, It's good to see it. It's good to be sitting next to you. He probably wants to see the video, is what he really wants, and wants to see the video. Um, and so look in a time of quarantine when we're all grasping for things like Tiger King and and stories to to captivate us. But everybody's been watching the Michael Jordan documentary things like that, Like we're all looking for stories that we can rehash, and this is just one of them. Um. So that's that's what I would just like say, is the urban legend part of this that's how it got to be where it is today. Where where a man takes some images off his phone I believe Brett, and shares them to Instagram and people start to comment, oh, Wes Perkins, Oh man, I've been I've known about that story for three years. Um, when they obviously have no idea what they're talking about. So in effort, in an effort to just let Brett tell the Baritech story, we're gonna skip a lot of things here. We're gonna land um. Weirdly enough, when Brett and his dad get back to the lodge after their twenty four mile um snow machine ride, we were able to in an effort to make sure that we talked to some credible witnesses and people that could confirm able to talk to the pilot. What was the the official flight company named like Alaska, Life Metal Aska, Life Metal Alaska. The pilot, his name is Brett Westcott. Um tell us a little bit about Joe. You talked to Brett. Tell us a little bit about this this bread bread Westcott. Yep, so Brett Um. The conversation with him was probably the most reassuring UM conversations that had that this actually happened. Like when I talked to him, I was like, yep, okay, well, I'll look back up at one step and I'll be I'll have to be careful with this one. We had an off the record comment from an official with an agency won't say who that straight up said these photos are fake. Yep to you ye, someone with us adjacent cy to this was not an eye witness, but someone who would someone yeah, we would say, someone involved in the investigation, who would have known, I would have had pur view to things that we wouldn't have at that time known. This person comes in and says, at the end of a conversation with Joe, oh hey, just just so you know, those photos are fake, just dropped it out of nowhere, And it was pretty much the conversation enter and it flow and it throws us for a loop because we're now in a position where where I just had told I think maybe that same day, finally told Joe like, I believe this ship and there's no I don't think there's anything that's gonna kick me off this because I just after hearing from Bread and hearing from his mother and reading things and looking at things, everything lines up. All of it fits. And and right before that conversation, the three of us we're talking and like, Yep, we believe and I think these photos are real. And then I call you guys back forty five minutes later, Holy sh it, someone said they're fake. Not just some like like some very incredible source set off the record that these are thick. Now it turns out that probably was more conjecture than truth. But it's certainly through us for a loop. Um, but Brett Westcott kind of helped us. Yep, Brett Westcott definitely helped. So a little background on him. He's a retired helicopter pilot from the Army and now flies for Life met Alaska, and so him and his team, Brian Anderson, Paul Garnett, we're the ones who responded to this case. They flew out, met met Brett and Glenn at the lodge there and went to pick him up. And Brett Westcott told me when when I asked him, said what what? What was his condition when you got there? Like? Were those images reality? Like? Is that the way he looked? Me? Got to him and he said, actually the images were fairly mild. After though the twenty four miles snowmobile ride over Spring Snow rough, very rough riding. Uh. He said the rest of the skin had sloughed off of his face and anything that was still remaining, like over his chin and bottom lip had been removed. Phil my lord. Yeah, when he said that, I got a little queasy. But talking to him, Brett was in shock that he was still alive. He was saying that Glenn is one of the toughest men he's ever seen, and he was still aware. He was up and still aware and talking. He had blood pouring out of his face. Yeah, you'll hear. You'll hear from from Brett here coming up about kind of their after because part of like, you know, Miles Nulty was on the show last week. When I first showed this stuff to Miles, and what do you take to these photos? He's like fake. Why, well, who would take him? Why would you take that picture? What? What? What could motivate someone to take a picture. And so luckily we got that that answered from from Brett. But still, yeah, you're still kind of taken aback that this thing, this photo exists. But but Brett, I was so I was relieved when when Brett Westcott kind of came on into the frame. We I knew about him. I've heard and talking to Lorraine Phillips heard about him. She sent me a photo of him and Glenn. They had met years after the attack and and chatted. She gave me his first name. I had to go and do a munch of research to try to find what Brett Pilot works for Alaska life men um, and found him and then sick to Joe on it and you went and got a hold of him, yep. And he said a lot of amazing things. Yeah, yeah, a lot of amazing things. Uh. He he believed that Glenn was was very very lucky. Um. He even went to party to say, He's like, he's alive because of the grace of God. Then nothing else. Pretty much, He's like whatever we did didn't save him, like it was he his sure will to live and uh, yeah, he was very complimentary how tough he was. He he said that he was reminded him of special operators in the Army, had that same sort of mentality, and even though he was you know, mortally injured, like he was on his deathbed, basically he was still aware. He was focused on the mission and even told Brett where to turn the helicopter when they encountered some high elevation clouds. He said, turned down this valley, will get there quicker. Yeah, that's that's an amazing, amazing part of of this whole thing for me is that you'll find out through and as you go through the story, you'll find out that Glenn Bonds basically just directing the show. Yeah, he was all this. He was up and ready and rare and to go. He was calming down the flight medic and the flight and I's just talking like, oh, I'll be all right. I've had worse type of things. Do you have the audio you pull up the audio of his of the video that Brett posted where he's talking about his dad's talking about what they need to be doing. Keep the level head. Let me pull it up here really quick. Okay, we gotta get out of here. Let's just let's just keep our heads cool. Okay, we'll keep our heads cool. We're got to get out of here. Let's just let's just keep our heads cool. Okay, we'll keep our heads cool. At the end of that video, it sounds like he's saying, my face must be gone. Yeah, I mean what I know. No, I know you're just listening to this and you can't watch it with us. But um, Phil, do you want to see I Phil, you want to check it out? No, sure, buddy, I'm sure. Man, the artwork in the studio. Um. So you get to this point in the story, you know, like you'll hear it from Brett coming up, You're like, whoa like Brett Brett bond is Is saves his dad, his dad gets his face ripped off, and then he's directing his son like, let's take my photo, Let's get on the let's get on the machine here, let's drive this way, let's I'll hold on this way. Then the the Metavac helicopter comes to the lodge and he's like, let's go this direction. Um at this it's at this point where he starts to direct his medical care and say that I I don't want to go to this hospital. I don't want to go to Providence Medical. I want to go oh somewhere else. I don't want any pain medics. I don't want any blood transfusions. This is the point where this guy is confirmed by both Lorraine Phillips, who sent me his medical chart, and and Brett Westcott, who's telling you all this this dude has I can't even explain the trauma. Yeah, well they were in awe, the medical team on that helicopter, they were just in awe. Uh. Brett even told me that Paul Garnett at one point he was changing his gloves so frequently because there were so much blood and um come out of Glenn's face. He was changing him so frequently that at one point he's like, fuck it, I'm not changing these anymore. I want this tough bastards blood in my blood, like the combined bloods. We please combined our bloods together, right, But he was refusing pain meds. Sounds it sounds like if let's mix our bloods, Like, no, how about keep your blode out of my blood? Son um. That's just like this is where we start. We're gonna we're about to get to maybe maybe the twist, the biggest twist here, but this is where you start to. And there were rumors. I know, Sam, you probably read them. I read them to online where they were like and the guy didn't take pain meds. It was was I saw a lot of comments and ess words, threads where this was part of the urban legend. And the fact that you brought it up. I think I was on the phone with the Rain Phillips that I mentioned Brett's mom, Glenn's wife. The way that came about is I called Dr Susan Dean. Dr Susan Dean's office. Matt su was a Matt two general or just Matt sew hospital. Well, I don't think that's her office. That's where they went and she that day and got really lucky. That was another thing that Brett said was very lucky. She happened to one reconstructive surgeon was there when they got there. So they decided that this is where they want to go. And Brett kind of explained to me how they got pick that place. But we're gonna explain to you in a minute why they didn't want to go anywhere else and why they were skeptical about pain meds and and all that stuff. But this is where this this thing starts to get you start to learn. It's one thing to see that diamond D photo where nine days later this dude miractually somehow just has a nose again and has lips and a chin and it just looks like they just stitched him up through the center. That's one thing. But then to hear about exactly the details how that all went down from the folks that were a part of it, um is even crazier. It's just just crazier. But we're we're for sure at the point where now you have Glenn Bond, who's in a ridiculous state. He's even worse than the photos we've seen. He is. He somehow can see I don't even know how he could even see to direct to look out the window of a helicopter and direct the pilot as to where to go. Um. And he's the one, as we just heard in the audio, staying calm through all this. He's just a tough some bitches as our flight medic. Yeah, but you always asked the question, You've already asked it a couple of times. Why is it that they didn't want to go to Providence Medical Hospital or any other hospital. Why is it that they picked picked Matt su and why is it that, as as Brett Westcott told us, Brett Bond was being a little combative and at the time when they landed to get Um to take his dad to the hospital. This is a tangent. This is what we'll call a tangent. But it's irrelevant one. Yeah, yeah, it's highly relevant to they're just general distrust of of medicine and medical professionals. That was very much on display throughout the rescue effort and the treatment. And this one was not hard to hard to locate. That's where yet, that's where when Sam and I first started talking about this, I was just google Bret Bond or yeah, and or even Glenn Bond, and this is what comes up this story. Sorry saying I just want to When you told me that we were interviewing this guy, he's like, he was a part of a bear attack in Alaska's kind of a crazy story. And I was like, okay, I'll check it out. So I googled him. Nothing about a bear attack, what you're talking about. It was the only story I came across and I was like, is this the same guy? How many Brett Bonds in Alaska are there? I think all of us when we heard about this, I did the same thing. I'm reading this, I'm like And that's when I first started reaching out to people going, wait a minute, I'm not I'm I'm confounded, confused, kind of excited to help try to tell the truth here. After I talked to Brett, I told I think I even told Anthony Lakata I said, I respect this dude, because he straight up just said like, yeah, I could come on your podcast, but I'm gonna take some time to think about it. I'm not gonna jump into something like this, and I'll let you know if I decided to do it. I it happened four years ago, and it's my dad's story, not my story. So immediately I was like respect. But then you start reading into this and you're like, man, this isn't just no wonder. He's being this way, no wonder. He's cautious about this. So so Sam take us through a little bit about what what we're actually talking about. So, yeah, well we're actually talking about also goes back to a bear hunting trip, not surprising knowing Glenn and Brett Bond. So Brett was UM was guiding bear hunters on the Alaska Peninsula in October, so this is about three years prior to his father being attacked. Brett had been been taking predn his own, which is a steroid. He'd been taking that nasally for nasal polyps um. He when he was out on this hunt, he was experiencing terrible insomnia UM, and he hadn't slept for eleven days. When he returned from this from this bear hunt, and his parents took him to Providence Hospital, the dovetail to what we're talking about here. The doctors gave him LaRaza PAM and Zoldo PEM, which which helped with anxiety and sleep deprivation, and released him. Uh. The next day when he's back home, Brett started having seizures and then a couple of days later his parents took him back to the hospital where his continued. His condition continued to deteriorate. UM. He started be delirious, he started to hallucinate and even became unresponsive from time to time. UM. He was you know, obviously admitted to the hospital and doctors were working furiously trying to figure out what was going on with him. And I think it's worth worth mentioning that Providence is one of the top hospitals in Alaska, Anchorage being the by far and away the biggest city in Alaska. Something like sevent of Alaskans live within ten miles of Anchorage. UM, so this is this is a highly regarded institution. I couldn't figure out what's going on, but pretty quickly they're started to become uh contention between primarily Brett's mother but also his father and the hospital staff. UM. There's a there's a quote from from sealed court documents regarding this UM which were surfaced by police State U s A, which apparently is defunct now. UM. But miss Phillips began to intentionally interrupt and interfere with Mr Bond's care. And that's not speculation, that's from State of Alaska court documents. UM. So, his his mom, Lorraine was was very concerned that the medical professionals and the doctors at this hospital were did not have Brett's best interest in mind. I am not entirely sure where that derived from, but I think she thought that the medications that he was receiving were what was contributing to this condition, not seeking to mitigate it. She made she made clear to me in our conversations, I didn't you know, and also with Brett, I didn't want to push this. This is something I think, as Lorraine Phillips told me when we talked, it's been reported on. She said, just go look at my Facebook page. I post about it all the time. We didn't talk about it in depth, but she just said, look at these documents. And that's what we did. And so I think, as you said, this is all public record. This was this was this story that you're telling is not a story that just happened locally. There's an overwhelming amount of news coverage. There was a Facebook page and Tide Free Brett Bond that was there at the time, as as his parents, as we'll get into his parents fight there. But just just for scope here, um, we're dealing with, you know, yet another you know, extraordinary event in someone's life. Wanted just to be hospitalized for those reasons, and too to go through what you know, what you'll she'll about to describe, and so you know, in my in talking to Lorraine Phillips a week ago, she she does she believes wholeheartedly that they did not have his best interest in mind, and and that they're still in the wrong. And the distrust is clear, very clear, and that distrust is not only the rain. It's clear from what we heard from Brett Westcott and what we heard from others that you know, Brett and Glenn maybe rightfully so, but especially you know, given what they believe to be the truth is, it's clear that that distrust is there, and it plays out through the bear attack. But but continue with what what happens well basically, so into November, they were they were seeking to pull Brett out of out of the hospital, and the the hospital started having to post security and and there were they were like physical confrontations and they were picketing in front of the hospital, Free, Free Brett. They had hired a lawyer who I believe was a friend at the time, Rhonda Butterfield, but in December she discontinued her legal service of the bonds in order to tell the court that she had heard Lorraine say that she would rather Brett die in her arms than have any more drugs, that she was starting to make funeral arrangements, and that she should have shot him. While I had the chance, and Lorraine denies saying these things. UM, and any of us can choose to believe her or or not. UM, I'm just reporting it as it has been reported in the past. She told the Anchorage Daily News their lies and someone else's thoughts, and then the court ran with it. So whether or not she said that, the Superior Court in Alaska, UM, the okay, you know, bought it because the hospital requested assistance because they knew Brett was in a really bad state, and then if he was removed from the hospital, they thought he was going to die. And uh So in December, with with these with these statements, UM, alleged statements coming to light, uh, they uh they applied to the Office of Public Advocacy to have tempted to get temporary guardian status over Brett, and then UM by January, uh, in twelve days of hearings and the opinions of six neurologists, UM Brett was appointed as a ward of the state and his parents legally had guardianship over him through a will or something that he had had signed, but that was given to the State of Alaska pursuance of, you know, protecting his health because they they were. They were gravely concerned that if he came off the resumeen of of medicine that he was, that he was going to uh probably die. UM. This was this came right I believe right after he was finally diagnosed, UM, and that diagnosis was with autoimmune and cephalitis. Uh. It's an infection, very rare, but it causes a person's immune system to attack their brain and start to degrade. It. UM really bad, but a known condition and at least now they understand what it was. UM. And I've looked into this, uh just briefly enough to know that uh there that the symptoms are very confounding and it's it's difficult to arrive at that diagnosis, at that diagnosis. UM. But you know, at the at this point he isn't officially a you know, under the protective guardianship of the state of Alaska. UM. He continued to be treated at at Providence until March, when he was transferred to the HARBREVW. Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle, which is one of the one of the top hospitals in the country. It's associated with the University of Washington Medical School. I've been there personally. UM. And he and so they flew him down there. Brett's parents also went down there, and I believe there was a time when it was all okay. They were able to visit him um, and everything was going all right sort of. But then on April uh a nurse was wheeling Grett in a wheelchair down the halls of Harbor View and entered a elevator and as the doors were closing, the nurse was shoved from the back outside of the elevator and Brett disappeared. They called the police, knowing that you know, there's this security risks surrounding brett Um. The police went to the hotel where they knew his parents were staying, and then from there were able to figure out that they had taken him to a neighborhood clinic where Lorraine had admitted Brett Um to have him treated for drug withdrawal because her belief is that the psychotropic drugs that they were um issuing him were in fact, you know, generating this condition that he was suffering from. And you know, by this point you mentioned the free bet Brett Bond Facebook page, there was a national outcry again this there there's a there's a whole whole other rabbit hole on medical incarceration. And I'm still not entirely clear how people frame this or like why they think these evil doctors are trying to body snatch people. But but but there's a lot but there are a lot of people who believe this, and so and and so there was a little bit of an echo chamber going on. UM Lorraine was charged with kidnapping, and Brett was returned to the hospital. But then a few months later, a month later, he was recovered, released released from UM the medical guardianship of the state, and went to stay with with family in Idaho. But his but the story endures, you know, completely separate from the bear incident, but as UM as kind of a quasi deep state conspiracy. UM and and and he's really held up as as one of these examples of of some secret cabal of doctors that medically incarcerate people for nefarious purposes. Yeah, and you know that when we look at when we're looking at this, especially in talking to Bread about it, UM, which I haven't done much of. I know, we probably mentioned it a couple times. I mostly talked to the Rain about it because she was very open about her feelings and to me when I when we first came across, as I thought, and I know we talked about this same I thought, well, um, interesting, how relevant? I'm not sure. Probably not all that relevant in terms of a guy gets attacked by a bear and survives. Probably not. But as we got into the story and you kind of start to see, you know, the lack of trust in the media, which I'm sure which I'm sure that Lorraine and bread and family felt at some level scorned buy in this. I'm only only guessing at that UM, there was some level of distrust there. Lorraine articulated to me in our conversation that she did she still felt extreme level of distrust with Providence Medical and there was a lawsuit in UM in the Supreme Court of last There is a lawsuit I found it where she she names some eighteen different plaintiffs, including doctors and Providence Medical as a whole. And I believe Harbor view to she she is not shy about that feeling. I'm not I'm not here to comment on on its truth or untruth. UM, I can tell you that the bear attack narrative is true. Like I could sit here and tell you that I'm willing to with what I know and what Joe and Sam help me find out that this is true. The what Sam went through and what we're report in the story is what we got from court documents and from from already published medium materials. And so we're not gonna skip over that. Yeah, And I and I and I tried to say that with as little editorialism as possible. And I don't want to discount the power of prayer for for healing because people truly believe in that. And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here and say they're wrong. I'm just I'm just telling you what happened after what I have learned from reading dozens pond dozens of stories about sure UM and so that there there, there that is I think that does inform why UM Glenn Bond didn't want to go to put the profitence Medical Hospital UM or be treated by their doctors UM. He wanted to go somewhere else, and they landed on Matsu. It was a hospital UM where Dr Susan Dean was And I, you know, I haven't gotten this comment from directly from Brett like, but like I said, my my take on it, my personal take after talking to everybody involved. Is that you know at some level, after you go through something like that, you're gonna be way, way, way more guarded about everything in your life, specifically things like this bear attack and so here we are, like, like I said, that was a twist in this story that I didn't see common when I first started talking to Brett. I feel we have to treat it with kid gloves because it's it's there's two sides to every story, and there's certainly two sides to this one. Um. But it's there, it is, it's part of it's part of this tale. Um, Phil. Do you have any questions at this point that you would like to ask? Uh? Does Brett You don't have to if he talks about this in the interview, don't comment on it. But does is he aligned with his mother about how he was treated? We didn't talk about it, partly because in the interview I wasn't really we hadn't done the rest of the investigation when I talked to Brett. Um. But him and I really haven't talked about it to this day. Like said, I talked to Lorraine about it. She feels strongly um and that's where that's where we currently are. He has post about it on his Facebook. He I would almost and I'd be willing to confirm this with him after we hit the hit the the off button the year on the record that he I would be willing to speculate that he agrees with his mother, that I would be willing to speculate given what we know about how he was acting, you know, in terms of when Brest, what Brett Westcott and his team showed up. You know, Brett did tell us that he was being a bit combative. He was, you know, was taking photos of their badges and getting evidence and making sure that his dad went where his dad wanted to go. M He even went so far as to say, um that he wanted one of the flight medical crew to stay behind so that he could go with his dad, Um, because he did not trust them going without him. So that I mean that there's there, Like, like I said, I didn't want I still don't want to have this whole thing to be about that, but this is that's just part of it, and it informs all these crazy things that happened. But but then we get to, you know, one person we haven't talked about. I wish we could there's some circumstances where we haven't been able to talk to Dr Susan Dean, who is the plastic surgeon, the surgeon that was on call on staff at the hospital where Brett Westcott landed his helicopter and they rushed len Bond to surgery. But according to to Lorraine Phillips, she's and like I said, she sent me his medical chart. He was in there for six and a half days, so I remember correctly, I think I do like six and a half days, and he had one surgery one he the instructions were no pain medication, no blood transfusion, and only mild sedation. And it's ad ext debate as soon as possible on his metal cooking chart as well. And so here's the situation where this man it's like, I'm not gonna say it was the worst trauma that someone can go through, but boy, pain meds would have probably been nice for most people. Yeah, And I mean every every person we talked to saw the scene just I mean even Brett just couldn't describe how much blood had been lost and to not have any additional blood added to his system is it's amazing that we we would return at some point to the photo in Diamond Customer Ether where nine days later here's a guy who I mean it was, I don't know that, you know. I know in in the interview you talked to Brett Westcotty's talking. He talks about the golden hour in terms of, like you get whacked like this, there's an hour to get care. Yeah, and as you'll hear from Brett soon, it's hours. I mean probably four or five hours if you add it all up. I think it ended up being like four and a half hours from the time he was attacked by the bear until he hit the ground and the yep, he's so then he he had there's one surgery in which I don't know the details of it, but there was mild sedation involved, which means he probably wasn't fully out, or if he was out, it wasn't for very long. They fixed his face. Six and a half days later, he's out. Nine days later, he's taking a photo in Diamond d custom Lather. Those things we know for sure that those things happened. They're corroborated by multiple sources, and so I guess that LEDs us to the one doctor. There's three surgeons. There was an eye surgeon and ear surgeon, and then doctor Studan Dean, who did the initial surgery. Both of those, the eye and ear doctor were in Idaho. Both of them correct wrong around two thousand eighteen. They were performed secondary surgeries. And you talked to the ear doctor, the ear doctor, Ye tell us about that. Dr Crawford. He he confirmed again just how tough Glend is and what a attitude heat about the the whole ordeal. But so what Dr Crawford did was he he fixed the ear canal the ear that was was ripped off uh and reattached by Dr Dean. Everything was still functional underneath underneath that ear that was reattached. So basically what he did he went in and opened up that ear canal again so that he was able to use his ear. And he confirmed after that, He's like, yep, no pain pills and he never came back for a post op that you're just like And then I think he called Brett later and Light called Glenn later, and I was like, yeah, I hear myself pissing for the first time. That's Glenn actually called the office just a couple of days after the whole or deal and he's like this is great. I could hear myself pissing in the little of the night. Yeah. Um, but yeah, there we are. I mean there. I'm sure there's other things that we missed here. As Brett told me the other day on the phone, you don't know half the story, and I'm sure that there's We're We're going to continue investigating this and looking into it and trying to make sure the truth is there in spades. Um. That you will see an article coming in the next week or so on to the Mediator dot com that will run this all out in detail. Um, all the interviews we've done, all the investigative work that we've done to help. The way that I look I don't know the way you guys look at it. I know neither of you have talked to Brett or his mother, but I have. And the way I look at it, and I truly look at it this way, is that I, like I were in the unique position to help them tell their truth, the truth in terms of the bear attack. Um, I we I went through this journey where I I didn't think it was true, then I thought it was true, Then it was then that was challenged, and then we went back and triple checked it and everything everything, basically everything that Brett has said checks out. I can't think of anything Joe or Sam that he said that I checked on and that wasn't corroborated by someone else. Incredibly, I can't think of anything, you know. The only thing, the only thing that stound stands out at me, out to me, is you know, a question we haven't quite answered yet here is why why now? Why four years later? Why did he ignore the media attention then but then sought it this year in March? And he explained it very very briefly, and and you'll hear in this interview. Yeah, and it's it's it's kind of indicative of who he is and who his family is when he said that he's a private person. But but now you're not. Um, you know, it's just it. Ah, it leaves it leaves a big question that's not answerable, not verifiable, but it's very intriguing. Yeah, and he talks about you would imagine it's the timing where the question comes in right, that he would feel the need to clarify is not surprising given what we know that it took this long to get the clarification is where where I'm like, hmm, okay, why he explains it and you gotta take him by his word, you know, and that, like you said, that is the one the one part we're like, why so long? Here we are. You can see wanting to set the records straight. Um, you can see wanting to promote your business. That's that. And he admits that part. And you'll hear him say like he knew that during quarantine that he had he knew he had a viral story on his hands, and he knew that during quarantine people would be on their phones and he wanted to had a captive audience, and um, he was smart about it. And and then here we are, you know, and again here again it's what's today May something, twenty something, I don't know, I lost count eight. That was close. He posts that stuff. In March twentie he shared some of his of the story with mentions it in the interview a couple of places on Instagram. But there's been no big coverage of this. This is the first what we're doing right now is the first time anyone's hearing a lot of this connected to this bear attack. And that is again, uh knowing Brett A couple of weeks I have that's by design, and so that that all mixes together and what you know, what we'll call an urban legend here. And so what you're about to hear is Brett's first time on a podcast. Is he didn't really, like I said, didn't know what it was when I first talked to him. You're about to hear the first time that he talks about this publicly outside of his own Instagram chow. That's that's in the first time that Lorraine Phillips, to my knowledge, has talked about this publicly, the first time that Brett Westcott I talked about this publicly. That all that will be included in our article. But so what you're about to hear is is Brett's account. Um, I can vote. I believe him, think this is all true. It is amazing. Uh, He's a hero. His dad is the toughest son of a bitch alive. Now enjoy Brett Bond telling his story that day in the nal Ohia. Brett, how's it going, man? Hey Ben? How you doing good? Pretty good good. We're back in the studio and I've been talking for a couple of weeks about doing this, and I've been stuck at home doing these podcasts. But we're finally back in the studio. So thanks for the perfect excuse to get back in here. Yeah, no problem, sounds good. How are things in a Laska man? Oh, it's going good. Um minus non residents can't hunt, so it works a little slow. But out there just being a resident joining hunting. Yeah, what's the you know, from your perspective, what do you what's the you know? We we've talked a lot here at Meat Eater and even on this podcast about helping the guiding community, because that's it's you know here locally in Montana, the fly fishing community has been hit hard. The hunting community has been hit hard. Um, what's your perspective on, you know, being a guide and trying to keep a business going. I'm sure cancelations and things popping up. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's you know, it's all new to me. But uh, as far as you know this, uh, closure and stuff. But I'm hoping for the best. I'm just trying to stay positive and looking forward to June one, and I'm just telling my clients and stuff just continue on and hopefully everything will get released and we'll be good to go June one. I don't know what else to do. I'm just waiting for further notice. So yeah, you're telling me you've been doing some hunting yourself. Yeah, yeah, I've done some hunting. Uh, got a few bears, but on four bear hunts in the last it's been fun. So good man, good, I'm glad you're still doing what you what you love to do. Um. You know, we want to you know, a lot of things we want to cover here today. Um. You know everybody's gonna want to hear about the attack that became viral a couple of weeks ago on on Instagram and elsewhere. Um, but uh, I want to, you know, hear about you first, hear about your family here, about how you grew up in Alaska. Alaska is the place is near near my heart just because it's wild as hell and I love to visit it. But you grew up in it, um, and I had a lot of good experiences. So you started hunting at what age? Man? I started hunting young. It was probably My memories would be probably three four hunting rabbits, snowshoet hairs up here in Alaska. You know, I started out planking with the BB gun and that was probably my first memories, was shooting rabbits and squirrels. So yeah, it's your what's your dad the first guy to take you out or do you have family members that did or what what introduced you to run around outside? Yeah? I was my dad and my mom Dad. Mom. They would take me out right away. So I mean I was snow machine there, six weeks old. They had me on the back of the snow machine and um, yeah, my parents took me out right away. So I was fortunate enough to be born right here in the Last Frontier and I was living the life. So your parents, what was their background? I know, you know they they taught you to love the outdoors, but what what were they like growing up? Um? Well, my dad was born in Colorado and he came up here in nineteen sixty six and as a school teacher and started out in eight Act and then went to Anchorage in nineteen sixty eight, and he was on Bluga hunts and seals and all that stuff. But you know before the that Act came around in nineteen seventy two, so he has a big hunting background in Colorado. My mom was basically born here. She's been here since nine months old. And um, she didn't really have a hunting background, but when she met my dad in the early eighties or whatever, um, she was the big hunter. So I kind of took her spot, you know over um officially kind of when I was about twelve years old. So but um, as far as the hunting goes, So, yeah, I read on your website you killed your first cariboo when you were seven. Yep, first cariboo at seven, first moose, and eight. I should have had my first moose the same year as my caribo when I was seven, but it was fifty my dad had. It was a regular size gun and he cut the stock in half for me, and um, after that caribou hunt, I wasn't really looking forward to carrying that gun. So my dad told me on the moose hunt, he says, if you can't carry your own rifle, you can't shoot it. So I watched my dad shoot a moose right in front of me when I was seven, and then finally the next year, I carried my gun and shot the moose. It was actually a lot bigger moose, So I was happy, happy for the Uh. Yeah, your relationship with your dad, you know, because we'll get to to what happened four years ago. But you know, how would you describe your relationship with your dad? Are you guys close, best friends, hunting partners? What's how would you describe that to folks? We're pretty close. Um, you know after you know, after the attack, you kind of changed things a little bit. You know, we used to you know, he used to kind of be guiding. You know, he used to guide too, So, I mean he retired school teacher at ninety two, started guiding when he was he was assisting guide all the way up until October two thousand fifteen, so six months before the attack. And he's the reason why I got into guiding, basically, So the master guy that he was employed by with the last ten years or so of his career was bargain me. So finally, after I graduated college, started guiding, and uh, kind of turning it into a career at this point. So I enjoy it. But um, as far as relationship goes, we still go out and stuff. Obviously we're hunting together in two thousand sixteen. And actually I thought, just moments before the attack, I thought, this is gonna be pretty cool. I'm gonna be in a picture with him. You know, he was in my picture, um when I was seven years old and he was gonna He was seventy seven at the time, and I thought I was actually in visualizing taking pictures and then uh, the attack happened. So but um, as far as hunting nowadays, we went out hunting last year, didn't get anything, but hoping during the future that this year we're gonna go out hunting again. Um, because he can't hold a normal gun, so we got him a stock with a hole in it. So I'm hoping to get him a moose or something with this this year. So yeah, yeah, Hey, being a guide, I mean you're you know, I was reading a lot about your service bb Alaska dot com. If you you want to go whenever this COVID damn thing clears up, you want to go visit bread up there and pay for services? Um, what's it like being being a guy? Is that everything you thought it would be? You know, Like I know, um, you know your business is good. Yeah, looking at your Instagram account, there's let you guys are taking a lot of great animals and you're a great part of the country. So like, what what you know, what's the career as a guide, like, well, I enjoy it. Um, I don't even think I'm working because I do it for fun. When I'm not, you know, if I'm not guiding, I'm hunting for fun. Um. It's something that I enjoy, in my opinion, being right there and saying, you know, shoot the animals. I get the same rush as when I'm holding the rifle and I'm shooting the animal. Um, it's a great way to shoot, you know, share Alaska with others. I mean, I totally love what I do. Um. I couldn't see myself doing anything else. And uh, I don't know, it's just, uh, you know, things obviously, times they're a little different right now. So but I'm hoping that everything we're resuming a normal um without any changes like it used to be. But just trying to be optimistic about it. Yeah. Yeah, Well, as we move to the attack, I think, you know, as we before we really get into the attack itself, from your perspectives, we don't have your dad on and we're not going to tell his story for him. Um, when you decided it was you told me when I first started messaing you about this. Because I want to say that hundreds of people sent me the link to your original post. It had to have been hundreds of people. And then and then co workers, UM, family members. A lot of people were talking about when you posted. And when I first started messaging you about this, you you just said, you know, it's four years ago, UM, and there was so much that was unknown about the photos and the attack and who you guys were. UM. You know why, I think the core question for me, UM, other than just getting the details out about this attack, is why did you post it when you did? Why did I post him when I did? Well? UM, four years ago. I think it was about three weeks after I actually went hunting, UM, when I was out of service for about twenty days, shortly after the attack. When I got back, I got messages saying that, you know, three or four of my pictures are viral on wine and then I started seeing it over the years, and you know, just a lot of people saying it's fake, and you know, all these stories that rise up, UM, and all these accounts saying oh they know what happened and this you know, blah blah blah, and you know a lot of other names being put on the photo and saying there's somebody else and I don't know, Like, once you know, this quarantine started happening, I kind of figured what can I do for my business and kind of sat down. I thought, well, everybody's gonna be on their phones at home, so maybe i'll share a little bit of my video, UM kind of show. Mainly I was just trying to show people it's not fake. And then I was trying to emphasize UM hashtag save a life, carry a handgun, And I was just trying to share, you know, my story and what happened, and hopefully you'll save somebody else's life someday. Yeah. I want to talk a lot about that part of it too, given your experience as a guide and as a you know, as a kid kid growing up in Bear Country, and then you know this experience in and of itself. UM, did you you know when when you made that post? I know, I know, you know, you know what the photos and videos are that they will draw attention. You mentioned that, Um, was there any surprise when it went you know, I guess re viral or or blew up during the quarantine the way it did. No, I knew it was gonna blow viral. UM Obviously it was a little slow because I was just on my private account, you know, was six hundred some followers. But once it took you know, a day or two and then boom it and then it shot off. I went viral, and then you know, I was getting a lot of d M. So I figured, well, I'll just do, you know, sing a little bit more of the story, you know, a little posts. So I ended up doing four posts, and I actually collaborated with North American Rescue on Instagram and they did a couple of posts kind of more of the medical side of it, because you know, everybody's kind of can't understand how he was talking and stuff, and we explained that a little bit and my medical background and kind of you know what played out as far as you know, his airway and you know all that stuff. So that's on North American Rescue on Instagram. There, let's let's get into that really quick. You know, what's your what what is your I know your licensed by the US Coastguard. Um, you receive your fifty ton Master Coastcard license. UM. There's a bunch of things. Standard first aid, a doll a d training that you've gone through, hold a Certificate in Training and Willern's Remote First Aid as well. So just take take us through that. Why do you you know, why do you feel it's necessary to get those trainings? UM? And where you know that knowledge base? Well, how I started doing it was basically a requirement UM for guiding, and we'll in their safety Specialists aka bearguard. I've been bearguarding UH for ten years and guiding for ten years, so I've been doing those two pass career paths basically for the last ten years together. And a lot of the training interlocks UM learn to return UH systems. They're an anchorage I've done most of my training and UM actually I did like there one of their upper level classes actually just exactly a year before, and that was basically in the back of my mind when I walked up to my dad, UM doing my medical assessment the airways, the bleeding and stuff like that, and UM going through the you know, going through that in my mind, the checklist. UM, it's good to have, I would say, definitely in the back country. UM, just anybody should have it, even if you don't even have to be a guide or be a bear guard or professional you know, career in the outdoors. Just anybody that enjoys the outdoors that it's that it's exposed to, it should basically I would recommend basically having that background training, especially when you're in bear country. Yeah, can you talk about I know, um, when North American rescues. When I read about this from them, the story you shared, they talk about a march assessment. Can you talk to you that a little bit? Yeah, just going through that just I mean, I mean I was when I first got up to him, of course, you know, I mean I look at him and my first impression, you know, was Okay, this is gonna be about ten seconds and I'm gonna watch him, you know, crok right in front of my eyes. But um, to my I mean he was talking or hearing consciously. It was just it was amazing, like once impact happened, everything went in our favorite. I mean, he still had one eye, so you could still see me. Obviously I didn't. He wasn't didn't have a mirror out there, so he didn't panic at all. You know, I had to look at him, but he didn't have to look at himself. He still had a new ear left, so you can still hear me. No major blood loss, so that was my first thing. I was just checking him, doing the pat down that UM learn to return taught me just I mean, he had a lot of you know, winter clothes on snow pants. I saw a little bit of blood on him, but later on found out that he had actually had claw marks in his butt from the bear. That's one thing I missed during my assessment, but mainly his hands. Um, that was the only thing he complained about was his wrist and uh. Talking to one of those surgeons about a week later after the first initial surgery, UM, he says Cain, I went into his wrists and hit that artery and pushed it out all the way. So he said, you had had about ten minutes to react to that. So fortunately I really didn't have to do any medical treatment on him. Um, like probably twenty five minutes. He wanted me. He asked me to tie up his face. So I grabbed his face and he hand me his handkerchief and I did attempt to tie it on. I think I got maybe half the not done, and he was choking on himself. So I just let his face hanging back down and I just kind of went with that. So very fortunate, Yeah, very fortunate. UM, you know, the in the instinct that you have, the instincts that you have in in the face of something like that. You know, when you're when you're looking at your father in that you know, and everybody who's hopefully you know, seeing the photos and read the story, you'll know. I'm sure it was a gruesome sight and you were able to kind of let those instincts and your training kick in and do all the right things to make sure. UM, yeah, you saved his life. So I think, you know, as we talk about as we get ready to tell the story here, I just want to make sure that people understand, like your commitment to what's impressed me about talking to you prior to this, your commitment to this, UM, your commitment to teaching people UM this you know what I would say, is this this essential skill and the central craft UM. And then how it played itself out in this situation I think is equally amazing. UM being So, so, let's let's rewind the clock a little bit and back to you know, where were you guys, what were you hunting? What? You know, why did you decide to go out? Give give people kind of the backstory to the hunt itself. Okay, well it was in April, um, so obviously early. It was mid April. It was actually a tax day to be exact on his attack mid April. But uh, we just decided to go out April spring bear hunting, you know, on snow machine and try to get a bear that's freshly out at the den and uh no rubs on it. And I kind of wanted to see my dad shoot a bear, um because you know, he was getting up there in age that back then he was seventy seven and he wanted to go out and shoot a bear and I was just looking forward to, you know, get him a bear. Um. And uh, we decided to go in interior Alaska. We're hunting in the Alaska Range and uh on snow machine and um yeah, no, Um, is this something you guys have done done a lot before? It sounds like your dad hadn't hadn't bear hunted often? Oh yeah, yeah. He's been guiding Peninsula Kodiak a lot of ten footers. He actually got attacked back in two thousand and seven on Kodiak. He was guiding a client and there was another guide with him that already finished up, so he was with him and my dad was guiding his client and they actually saw these two bears the day before. It was they thought it was a uh, you know, a sound a big sow and a boar, but it ended up being a nine and a half foot boar and a ten foot boar. Um. They actually called him the queer bears, a buck valley um, and they actually shot. They shot the nine and a half footer, and uh, they were just getting up to it, I guess. I mean, I wasn't there, so I'm just telling you the brief of it. And uh, all of a sudden, the other guide was a little bit behind, yelling he's gonna get you, Glenn. He's gonna get you, Glenn. And then there comes all there's moving and my dad and the hunter, Jack Browns and their rifle, and my dad says, as soon as you see the bear, shoot and the hunter shot it, and then my dad shot it right in the head and it's get it right in front of him. So I guess there was ten ft and they came in that instance. But so get to the point, he has, you know, lots of a bear experience. I learned a lot from him. Most of my bears, you know, experience you know, over a decade ago. Came from him getting into the guiding career, and so he's definitely uh well experienced um in that. And uh yeah, when you're going into a hunt like this, um, you guys talk about it before you leave. Is it just something that you know, you guys just have a mutual understanding of what what you're gonna do if you run into a problem bear or if you're in a situation like that. Yeah, that I mean, for instance, like I always do my guide talk when I'm going with somebody, but going into this one, we really didn't have a talk. I mean, I just have so much respect for him, and he taught me everything, so I kind of really didn't, you know, step up to the plate and kind of talk everything over. Just you know, he's the guy that taught me everything. So he actually didn't carry his three seventy five on this hunt, particularly because the whole season was still open, so he was carrying his weather be three um, something that he regrets, you know obviously afterwards. So he's carrying hunterning bullet but rather than a bullet um and had a mixture of factory rounds and reloads in the gun. So Um, if he had his three seventy five, I not sure, but I'm pretty sure things would have been a little different situation that was presented. Yeah, that I think that tracks on all the bear bear attack stories we've covered on this show, and it's certainly tracks with viewers. There's just little idiosyncratis, little decisions that lead up to the end result, whether it's positive or negative, you know exactly, And it's just a little these little things, and it's gotten me to think about, you know, when I'm out in grizzly country, you think about the little things. Understand, you know, these are this, this what thinks like. It's a very small decision before I jump in my truck, can be can mean life or death. Take us through what the day was like, you know, you know, right before um it happened, you guys seeing a lot of bears. Give us just a brief description of the hunt prior to the attack. Yeah, it was sunny, conditions were good, not too favorable. They're a little bit warm, but it was still crusty in the morning, and uh, everything was going good. We knew we had to get on something, you know, before noon and try to best get out of there before you know, snow got too soft for writing, and um, yeah, no, just I'm the one who actually spotted it. I see it kind of like a hole up there in a bunch of tracks, and I studied it pretty good from down he low and noticed that. HEN was like, hey, there's no exit tracks. What I mean by that is nothing going over the mountain, nothing going away. All the tracts lead back into the hole. So I asked my dad. I said, I'm pretty sure there's a bear, you know, up there, up on that mountain. I said uh. And he goes, oh, why don't we do it tomorrow? I go, no, there's no tomorrow. I said, I want to leave this afternoon. I said, so, I said, we either do it now or we just get out of here. And he said, do you have a coin? Let's flip a coin and I said no, I don't have a coin. So we're gonna go the other way, you know, you know whatever, Either that or we're gonna go look at the bear and see if you know what a kind of bear it was. And I said no, I don't have a coin. So he kind of looked back and forth, you know, up the other valley that we're gonna go check out or back up the mountain. He said, well, let's go. So that's kind of how that led into the whole deal there. Yeah, so you guys, you guys get going up that direction. Um, and and when is when's the first time you knew there was trouble? Well? Uh, well, I got up there and I thought about getting the above it with the machines, but it looked pretty steep and I couldn't tell him that, you know, crevice, and he was driving a little thunder that's a single cylinder three hundred, so I didn't, you know, I didn't want to right up and have him walk. So we both walked up and I got to this little advantage point. It's kind of like a little dull, like a little flattened top within the mountain, and I arranged find it. It was thirty six yards and we were slightly down pretty much level with level with it. So I felt pretty comfortable there. And uh, I said, well, let's we gotta go check these tracks out. You know, I want to see what's in the whole, like I want to get above it and check these tracks out. He's like, no, I'm fine right here, okay, And I said, why don't you put around in your chamber. That's like my number one pet peeve, And my guy talked his rounds in the chamber, so I said, let's put the fourth round ends. He had four rounds, three of the magazine, one of the chamber, and he tried putting one in the chamber. It was one of his reloads from years ago, and it would not chamber and he goes and I was like, oh, he goes, you're the last one to use this gun, and I said, well, I was using your factory rounds. So he had nine rounds on the side of the stocks. So I grabbed a gun from him and put a factory round in it and chambered it. So later on I did not know he had three reloads underneath that factory round. So hindsight, I would have took four factory rounds and put them in his gun. But that's here there. So that's kind of how we got set up there. So then you used to kind of struck off to check the tracks out. Yeah, so yeah, I was like, well, I'm gonna go up and around and check out the track, so, um, something that I don't do. So this is one thing I regret. Um. I said, Okay, I'm gonna put one in the chamber and I'm just gonna walk up in front. So we walk around. So I walked clear to the round way to the side. I mean, it took me a little bit. And I got up there and I was above it. I don't know how far. I would say ten yards probably, And I'm facing actually to my back to me. My dad's at eleven o'clock, my backs facing a way and uh, I was looking at the size of the track and realizing, wow, who just looks like it's a big bear, you know, just starting to comprehend, like what we got going on. And that's when he says he's coming out. Pret started yelling at me, so and and you. At this point he starts yelling at you spin around, and yep, he spin around. Yep, my spin around. You gotta remember, my dad's starting six yards from the whole, slightly down, not much, pretty much level. I spin around, you know, with one in the chamber, obviously, with my three seventy five and three in the magazine, and and I'm sitting there and it happens to I mean, this bear comes. I mean, I'm the sticker shock of the size of it and how close I was to it, and very very fortunate, um that I ain't getting nailed from behind. He honed in on my dad's voice, obviously as soon as he pop out, because my dad was screaming, Brady's coming out and he and basically when I saw it, my Dad lays off around and I was all excited, thinking, Okay, boom, he's gonna hit him and he's gonna spin and I'm gonna plug him. And fat Bear just looked like he got spin on. So what happened was my dad had him on his head like he shot that bear No. Seven and it went down in a dip, so his hunter and a gray bullet shot went over his head and hit him square in the back and missed the spine. So that thing looked like he got shot with the baby gun never even broke stride. So I'm sitting there trying to get up in a three by nine scope. I have it on three power obviously, and I couldn't. And then I'm sitting here. My natural reaction, I'm pretty quick on the you know that gun have been carrying around for ten years. I first thing I do is just natural. I jack around him. But what I do is I the live rounds flying out that I'm jacking out, and my combination with my dad saying, Brett, he's gonna get me after you already made his first shot. I could even get him in the scope. In hindsight, it's kind of a blessing because I would have been shooting at you know, forty five yards ish, maybe even fifty in a three. But you know, I could have shot him because he was at eleven o'clock, basically shooting straight at him, and my dad couldn't get his second round and got jammed up. That reload was his next round, that third round that was supposed to back up the first round of the factory that I put in his gun and he couldn't get the shot off. Yeah, it was going straight at him. Happened so quick. We're talking a couple of seconds where I just explained to yeah, yeah, do you you know in those seconds, do you um, when you replay that in your mind? Um, does it seem slower. I'm always interested in in those those moments, those moments before and kind of how you recollect them so many years later. Well, it's fast, but obviously four years later. You know, it's pretty much in a slow motion, but it's nothing. You know a lot of people probably can relate. They see a big animal and if they had gun, you know, guns in their eyes, they would kill it. But I mean it happened a couple of sets, you know, two seconds, you know, Um, there was nothing I could do about it. Um. Yeah, A couple of days later, you know, I kept, you know, kicking myself in the butt. Why didn't I get a shot off? Why didn't get shot off? But you know, after those couple of days went by, I'm grateful, you know, I didn't get a shot off, you know, because my shot would have been basically at impact and that's the three by nine scope, and the bear was basically in between me and him, so it would have been a no good deal. So is he still? Is he at this point still on the snow snow machine? No snow machines were left down below. We had to walk up good ways. Um, and my video you can see at the very end of it how far down those snow machines are. Got it? Um? And so the bear makes impact with your dad, Um, where are you? And then what do you do? I'm pretty much stuck in my tracks. Just all I did was spin around one eighty for when he yelled at me saying the bear was out, what I do impact happened? It looked like a semi truck hitting a fire hygrant. I mean, one second, my dad's on his knees there, knelt down, you know, in shooting position, and then he's gone and they're down the mountain. So basically, the bear just hit him and basically just grabbed his you know, like a prey, you know, behind the neck. But he just got him by the head and just took them down, just like he was a rag doll. So what I do was obviously I didn't set my rifle down. It's a no no. I was always taught by my daddy, have your rifle in your hand and not on your backpack, and in your hands. So I threw it to my left hand and started sprinting right off the bat. Within the first couple of strides, Um, I drew my four fifty four casule. I had prior experience with that two years prior, so I had total confidence in that gun. And then I started sprinting. I actually didn't sprint, I started at first. I started sprinting to the point of impact. But then I had to go off sounds, so I started sprinting on an angle towards them and the sound you're here and it is just the bear at that point is your dad? Yeah? The bear? My dad just uh, full on It's hard to describe. I mean, full on brawl, like you know with humans. Just commotion. It's the way to describe it. Not not good sounding commotion too, if I will add, yeah, yeah, I know, it's yeah. I'm trying to figure out the right questions I ask. I know this is probably tough for accounts. So if you you know, if you need to stop at any point, said just don't want to describe that. That's that's totally okay. Man, Um, we'll do as as you as you get down in range for the soul to do to do its job. What's you know, what position are you in and what are you thinking at that point? Okay, Well, I'm in a full on sprint and I had to go down the dip. And when I'm going down the dip, I mean it's we're talking. It's eleven o'clock, so borderline, you know, snow conditions and very fortunate I never post hold once. If I were to post hold, probably been a different result. So my tracks are just on top um. Actually, I mean I sunk a little bit, but never to break stride. Even the Barris tracks were on top um. I'm spreading now and I'm you know, I'm doing my thoughts and uh, you know it's uh. At that point, my adrenaline was, you know, pumping, so I will instinct kicked in and it was a weird feeling. You know. I harvested quite a bit of animals in my day so far, and that was a different feeling. So I just went straight up and I didn't know what I was getting into, but I was just running towards the sound at that point. And and you get when you approach the attack, um, are you now behind? Are you behind the bear? Are you you know what position is the bear and your dad? And when you when they're down at me. So I'm running straight at them. So I crested over, and I thought they were going to be closer. Everything I thought was gonna be closer. But I mean, this is a matter of a couple of seconds we're talking, but they're down there a ways. So I'm basically sprinting downhill at that point. Um, some of the guys that went out there the next day we're describing my tracks as like an Olympic athlete, like how far my stride was. But I was just full on sprint. But UM, go down there and you know he's on him. So and then they kind of they were way to my right, I mean not way to my right, but farther than I thought they were. So I just started and then once I got in the sight, and then I felt relieved because then I just had a target to go straight after. So I was just going straight down into it and uh fifty four casul So double action Ruger super lasking UM Redhawk, and uh I pulled the hammer back because I know it's a light trigger, and I knew I was gonna have to get close and things are gonna happen fast, and uh, I don't know how far, but I hold the gun straight out at me and I was yelling. So, I mean, you basically have two objects going at it in a full brawl, and I was the third party, and I was making myself known as I approached them. Yeah, yeah, when you take aim with the Ruger, UM, what's you know, because at that point, that's the critical moment, right like this life or death. When you take aim and you're gonna crack off a shot, it becomes critical for your dad and also critical for you because if you don't stop that bear, he may turn and come come for you as well. So what's let's go in through your head at that critical moment, like, how are you assessing assessing where to aim and where to where to put that fifty four? Yeah? Well, um, I like like that word you used, aim. So that's when I first started to trying to do. I held a gun out and as I'm full on running to him yelling t you know, the bear kind of sensed me and slowly he didn't back off, but he slid down his body from like his head area to like his chest area, and I think my dad was on his back. I'm not really sure. I just saw it. Did even look like he had a head. It was just a red blob and blood just it's hard to describe how much blood there was at the scene. But so I started aiming, and I was like, man, this is not good. So I just kept going full you know, like I just wanted to get human out of my view, like basically just the only thing I he is bear. So I got there. I mean, you know, at the time it didn't bother me, but later on thinking, wow, that was kind of not stupid, but pretty crazy how close I got to make my first shot. I get in there, and uh, I got him in the side of the neck. So I basically had a broad broadside. They were both broadside to me. I was running straight at him nine inthe angle shot him in the neck. Actually retrieved that piece of lead. I got that bullet, and then the bear kind of backed off and um, and then I got him guy who was down by his legs and that's when I smoked, got him in the vitals and um, actually sorry, I got that bullet. I didn't get the neck bullet. So basically that two it took two bullets of me to get him off and um basically tackled this bear off of him. But I was using lead as a buffer. And then the bear spun and I went down and not now at the point my dad's kind of behind me. Now he's kind of at a five o'clock and I didn't even worry about him at that point. I was just trying to kill a bear. And then that's when the bear turned on me and dug into the mountain. I'm coming down at him. We're basically coming and plan chicken going head on. He did one stride, I leaned back. I had my three seventy five, and I remember thinking to myself, well, I'm gonna have to result to my rifle after, you know, once I'm out. Um. And then my third round and I held it out. I did not hesitate, but at that moment I thought, okay, I did think this to myself. I said, okay, this is the last shot, like like this has to happen because my dad's life depends on it and my life depends on it. I was literally bracing for impact, made that third shot, and it hit him straight in the head. Yea wo um. Yeah. Sometimes you say wow and that's that's enough. Did you ever do you ever remember, you know, like it literally become going face to face with this bear, looking him in the eye or or reading his demeanor. Did you you know this is a this is a big bear. How big do you say the bear was? Oh, he was probably three eight four. We're in the process of getting a life size form my dad. So yeah, it was. It was a slid. It was a big bear. It was eight yeah eating that, I mean it was a big bear. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think important part of this, you know in the rewind is too. You know, once you put a couple of rounds in this bear and then you're facing off plane chicken as you describe so like so amazingly described plane chicken with the giant boar such as this one. Um, do you remember, you know the way it looked, Yes, it's very specially. Yeah, I can. Yeah, I wish I had a goper all my head, but I mean I can visually that's how what I can see basically how to describe it, and literally we can see it in my mind. He dug down and I was a little off center when I shot him in the head. It was to the right. But um, it was amazing because like it just reared back up like like I don't want to say, a puppy dog getting up, you know, and you know, sitting down up on his you know, front legs started going up and I plugged him right in the throat, right in the neck, center neck that fourth round and then he just kind of kind of pulled it backwards, and I kept running towards them, and I was able to get a fifth round into him, probably midbutton or something I don't even know, lower back, and the sixth round he was I had so much a general and so much emotion going on at that point I tried aiming for that sixth shot and he was so far out of range I didn't even bother. Yeah, so I yeah, to answer your question, yes, I remember it very very very well. I imagine it's vivid um And so at the point you so you get to the point where you know the bear is dead or at least yes, you're you're fairly certain. What oh? I I watched it die that third round, killed him right in front of me, five and a half feet from claw mark to my boot track, and I watched him and had the closest I can't you know, my dad has me be he came in contact with us. You never touched the paris, So at that point, I'm assuming you know that you're gonna your your mind switches to your dad at that point, right, Yes, yep, exactly, And so what do you do? Well? I uh, I once the bear is done, I you know, released the hammer and on that sixth round, I put it back in my whole thing. I turned around, and to be honest, I thought my dad was gonna be about I don't know ten ft behind me, you know, but he was probably fifty you know, that's how much adrenaline. And I had no clue where I was on the side of the mountain this, you know, just things change. So I ran up to him, and to be honest with you, I thought I might get a couple of seconds. If not, he's already dead because he wasn't moving when I got up there. And then you just started moving around, are talking like normal? Kind of I was in sticker shock. And then I jumped into what North American rest you kind of described in their post on Instagram and started going into my medical assessment right away, and then we started talking about the situation. Yeah, I think is the question I have, And like I said, feel free to go as much in depth as you want to hear or as comfortable. The question I have is is And I listened to you describe the story. I mean to me, I keep coming back to this sounds heroic. What you did sounds even though a lot of it was instinctual. It sounds like a lot of people when tested may not have been as aggressive as you were. Um, it may not have immediately gone into this assessment. Can you kind of walk that back and explain to Peovil why you think you react in the way you did on both counts. Well, I know there was absolutely zero hesitation what I did. I would probably you know, that would probably be too because two years ago I had an instance that gun and obviously it's my dad, and I don't know, I can't really describe it was. I was in the moment, and I had the confidence, and I had one mission on my mind was to get that bear and kill him. So get him off of him and kill him, because I should have did it, you know, I should. I wish I would, you know, at that point, I kept thinking, oh I didn't get a shot off. It's you know, I know it's not my fault, but I mean that's what I was thinking at the time, So I would, you know, that's probably the reason why I did that. So I just went straight after him and uh, yeah, I know it's my dad. Had no clue that I shot, you know, later on talking to him, you know, I didn't even hear your shots. You know, well, I shot five times, I shot, I shoid, I shot twice right over top of you, and shot him three more times, killed him on the third round, shot him two more times. Just keep putting lead in him. So yeah, with your dad when you're you're doing your assessment. As if folks have seen the video and the photos, it's it is. It's grewesome. I mean, there's no way around it, in no way to sure your coat. It's it's something that grewesome, most grewesome footage that I've ever seen. Um, because you have your training, did you kind of mentally skip over that and you had to? I know you did, um, but but how are you kind of dealing with all the inputs at this It's I'm sure what seemed like a pretty crazy time. Yeah, I don't know. I mean I was hyperventilating listening the video and you know, he's obviously he's the one that's calming me down. And my first instance was keep him alive, you know, and check them out. So once I realized, hey, he's gonna be fine, um, then I started going into a mode like I need to get you out of here. But one thing, you know, hindsight one thing I did not have and which I carry now days is an in reach And I was out of cell phone service area at that point, and that's the one thing I wish I had. It would have saved two and a half hours on time to cut his time off getting to the hospital. Yeah, yeah, an en reach. I I discovered that about three or four years ago that the end reach um is essential out there. And yes, for sure it's worth it. It's worth a monthly charge or whatever whatever garment it's charging, and it just it just is to stay in contact with your loved ones and for s S O S situations like this one. So so you've at the point that you've done the assessment, you know there's no bleeding, there's no significant bleeding from the injury. Um. Was was his airway compromised in any way? Like? Was that a critical part of this for you? No? Actually, naturally, just coming up to him, he was fine. I mean. The only thing that compromises airway it was probably me trying to grab his face and slap it back on him, because you know, it's like cut around. I wasn't the didn't slap it back on him, but I put him back on him. That's the only way that he was choking and it was not good. So when I took about a minute to clear him up and realized, you know, hey, we need to leave this face hang um yeah, and then yeah, so catch him and then he said. It said in the North American Rescue Post that the best course of action at the time was to let your father find a comfortab position um for for a twenty five mile snow machine evacuation um to a location where you could get a hold of emergency services. Um how quickly from doing the assessment and kind of figuring out the situation where you guys on the snow machine and back to so we got an hour to deal with all you just mentioned. So impact was at eleven. Yeah, I actually took that picture that went viral four years ago at noon. So basically from impact was at eleven, we started moving towards help at noon, So there's an hour in between. First fifteen minutes was me assessing it and then and then I was like, Okay, I'm going to run back down and grab my snow machine, which was a five fifty and I knew I could make it up there and I'm gonna grab you so I ran down the mountain, jumped on my machine, I high marked way above him, and I came down, facing down at him, right next to him, and I could not stop. So I yelled at him saying, hey, I'm gonna have to go back around. So then my second attempt, I went right next to him and I stopped facing uphill and I put the parking break on, and then that's when I tried to do his tie, his face, and then after that you got cleared with choking. And then he's the one he asked me, hey, take a picture of me. So that's how that all started. And that's why I think that was a huge question for a lot of people that that reached out to me, and I'm sure reached out to you. Is questioning, sometimes in a fashion I thought was inappropriate, but questioning why would you do that? You know, why would you take that video? Why would you? How could you? Why would you? So I you know, that's a it's good to hear you say that, but can you kind of get a little more detail into into what was going on? Then yeah, for sure, No, I mean to be honest with you, that Richard Pitcher has taken for two reasons one, he asked me, So I took it. And right after I took that initial photo, I thought to myself, well, if something, if he doesn't make it out of here, you know, how would I explain this to my mom? So then I flipped it over to video on my iPhone and I said, start talking, and he talked, and it's actually fifty six seconds long, almost a minute, and he just kind of explained a little bit what happened, and yeah, that's how that went down. And I stopped record and we got to get out of here, and you know, and uh, I started getting him up because at that point he's been in the same position for almost twenty minutes, and I actually, in the process of trying to help get him to his feet, I stepped backwards and I'm like, what the heck is that? I actually said that out loud. He goes, that's my ear. Obviously he was looking at it prior, probably when I was going down to get the snow machine, because it was the top half of his right here is what I stepped on. Did you retrieve it? Yes, I did. I didn't know what I just threw it in my car heart pocket, um wrapped it up in a paper towel, like a half paper towel, and threw in my car heart pocket. I wish I would have put it on snow, but later found out not much you can do with a year five and a half hours later. So yeah, yeah, but a lot of new little new learnings here, I'm sure. Yeah, that's amazing, amazing. Um, So you you get him on the snowmobile. Is he is he sitting in front of you? Is he hanging on too from behind? Like? What's the position for ride? Yeah? I put him on the snow machine. We're facing up hill and he actually didn't even get on it, and honestly, do you just kind of leaned against the seat and he goes the nope, and that's not gonna work. And I go, okay, So I said, let's walk down. I said, the slide on your butt and he goes, I ain't sliding. So I literally this is what took so long. Um. I walked him down kind of as a crutch. Um. I think I was on the low side. So I kept him up the mountain. I basically was like a walking stick to him and walked him all the way back down to the other machine. And uh, I had a run. Then I was like, hey, I gotta go back up because there's no way I was gonna take him out on the smaller machine. So for I sprint it back up the mountain again and got the machine and got slid it around and went straight down at him and then got down there Adam, So he actually didn't had to walk him off the mountain. We didn't snow machine off, catcha catcha and and during you know, when you guys are walking down, is he in in audio like audible or visible pain? Is is he comfortable at that moment? That's a dumb question. I'm sorry, but what level of comfort? He's fine. But the only thing that he complain, like a couple of times, or I can tell it, was his wrists. Um was his I think it was his right wrist that was bent and that's the one that got chopped really good, and he was complaining about that obviously, so it was shattered and broken and whatnot, but um, nothing like that. I got him down there and made sure he stable and got him some water, and then that's when I did my sprint back up or a jog or whatever, and I don't remember, but I was moving got the machine, got down there and I started to get him on there and I ripped off the gas can off the other one was topping off my machines was a five fifty. They sucked gas and trying to get him to go, and he was like, get all my stuff off of the other one. I was like what, So I untied his backpack is a little sack and getting all his belongings off the other machine, which I thought was kind of ridiculous, but he was thinking ahead in case we get stuck out there, and got him loaded up and in the backtrack a little bit I left out before I loaded him on the snowshoet, actually before I started walking them down, because I want to take a picture pictures with the bear, was what he told me. So the whole time I'm trying to get him out of here, he's wanting pictures with the bear. So yeah, so that's where that that famous photo came from. Yes, and that famous photo. And it's not like I went out of my way. The bear slid down the single machine went right by the machine barely. I mean probably hit it, I don't know. It just came close to it and slid and it was literally right in the way, right in our tracks on the way out. So I knew we were going to go buy it, so I promised him at least a picture. Yeah, that's strangely enough, you know, I think that after people process the initial shock of of what they're looking at, then they start to like reasonably and I think reasonably, so question how did this come to be? You know, how did these pictures and videos come to be? So I think as part of as part of the process of telling the story and get the right I think that's a huge part of it. And it's good to hear that you're you know that at that point your dad was cogent enough to kind of you know, and I think you seem like you were to you, you know, neither of you seem particularly frantic at that moment. No, no, not at all. But yeah. No, Then we started going and I had him on the back of the snow machine. So we pulled up to the bear and we both looked at the bear. So he go he even said, well that's a big bear, and I go, yeah, and then he started to get off the machine. I jumped off and he started to get off. I said, no, no, no, stay on the machine already got you on there, and I literally jumped over its head, stepped over its neck, took like two or three photos. Everybody's seen the photo of it, and then I took another detail. I think all my I posted all those pretty much. Uh, the shot, the first shot in the neck you can see that, and the third shot in the head where it bled out. Um. And then I stepped back on the machine and he was behind me, and we started going down to send it down into the bottom of the valley, and he kept hitting me in the back saying I was going too fast, and he told me to actually stop. We stopped down the bottom. He said turn the machine off. So we turned the machine off and had a little power I'll talk. So wow. It's it's nice to hear he's still being fatherly in the midst of something like this. Um yeah, did you during that journey, did you ever have any I mean, at this point he can see obviously, um he can hear you as you explained, there's never any other point where you thought, um man, maybe I I didn't assess this right. I mean, it's it just sounds like you guys were pretty pragmatic. Yeah, we're pretty yeah, pretty good about it. Um, he only had one basically hand that was his left So then I quickly said, this ain't working. We gotta figure something out. I said, slide forward, So I pushed him all the way forward. I jammed his feet underneath, put things in the front of the machine, and I had a little rubber high marker bars what I call and I said, put your hand on this and hang on. I says, if you feel woozy or whatever, lift your hand up. So then I had two guns trapped on me. So I had my feet pretty much flat on the running boards behind his feet, but some of my heels were kind of sticking up on the end of the gun tips. And like I emphasized at all this, you know, carry aside arm. This is why he's still alive. This is why I'm still alive. But another thing was I had a gold finger left handed throttle on that snow machine, which is connected to my other thought on the right side, so basically had dual throttles, which played a big factor of getting out of there later for the rest of the twenty four miles, so we had to ride. So you guys, you guys make it the twenty four miles. How long did it take you to do that? Left at noon, got to help at one thirties. Took me an hour and a half mile. Ye, and what do you as you're as you're doing that hour and a half journey, what are you assessing in terms of other factors? Like you already mentioned that, what if you get stuck out there? What if you run out of gas? What if if? That's what I'm exactly, I'm thinking this all in my head. I'm going, I said, I'm going back out the way I came. I knew there was another way to get out, but I got a track, so I started going out um and I was basically bouncing them around like a little kid. So I had him in between my arms. I had control of him at that point and control of the machine. I was able to not go fifteen miles an hour like he wanted me to ten miles an hour. On the back, I was able to go forty five, you know, fifty at times, and just you know, basically sending it and just bounce him around. I told him lift his hand up, and you know, every now and then I would slow down and yell at him, hey, you just get him to kind of say something so he didn't fall asleep on me or anything. And like, one thing, here's just kind of how crazy. But one thing that was going through my mind. He lost a hat on the way in and just you know, a little goofy little winter hat, and it was about ten feet off the trail. We're about three quarters of the way out, and I see it, you know, at this point, and I think he's not an offer, just you know, he's just there for the ride. And then this is the one mistake I did. I kind of dipped the machine a little bit trying to get his hat. So I slowed down and got off the trail a little bit and it dipped and it was like on a forty degree angle, and he was yelling at me, what are you doing? And I came to a point I was struggling trying to get that machine back over, and I came to a point almost asked him to get off, but I was able to get him kind of flatten without him getting off, and I grabbed his hat and I just kind of set it on top of his head and rip pulled it down real quick. I said, I got your hat. That kind of he was kind of upset at the time, but I think he's glad that I got it later on. Yeah, and that time we're talking, you know, I was getting off, but I was able to keep going and UM, yeah I got him back there. Well, UM, you know, when in an effort to kind of get to the point where you can explain, you know, how what you believe about what saved lives, save your life and your dad's life here and what you want people to know. Um, when you get out there and and you're able to what's the first contact with emergency services and how did that go? Yeah, we're able to get to where we're staying and uh, I come in and I bust through their door and says, my let somebody needs a call and my dad got attacked by a bear, and um, there was plenty of people there, so they're helping him out. And we were able to get a call out to the troopers in Life met And this was at one thirty and I'm trying to think. I think he got to the hospital four thirty. So they got there an hour and a half later, and UH took him to Matt's who there and in between Palmer and Wasilla and you got to the hospital five and a half hours later. Do you remember, you know, the people at the place you were staying, like their reaction at first seeing him. Yeah, it was there. Yeah, No, it was stickershocked. There was one gentleman. Actually, he was in the photo of my dad the night before, which is actually the last close up picture of my dad. He was pretty calm and was talking to him the whole time, you know, before my life med got there, and even the medics I think my dad all met with him afterwards in the last few years. Um, you know, they have all that training, but no one can There's no training in the world I can prepare you for that, you know. And I don't want to quote anybody or quote my dad, but you know, one of the medics kind of got up there and I was like, oh man, my dad said it's okay, son, I'm all right, or something like that. So, but yeah, So he was talking to the medics the whole time, and they wanted to him to take off his shirt, and my dad says, well, who's gonna keep you guys alive if we crashed somewhere, you know. So he was he had a head on his shoulders and stuff, like that. So yeah, it's it's amazing, um talk about his his recovery. Um, you know, the most amazing part of this, the thing that is flabber guessing to me, is that through all this time, you guys were able to, you know, take each problem and solve it and get to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. But at some point it was out of your control when in the hands of um, medical professionals. And at that point, what what did they have to do? And then I'm sure it was a long long recover. Yeah, if I had a guess, yeah, I mean they bandaged him pretty good. I got in the hospital. I think he went into surgery that night and I got there like an hour after and he was all, you know, tubes and all that stuff. But he got in there and he was able to get out. I think six days after earning the hospital, I got him out of the hospital. So yeah, very fortunate. Um. And then he had his both arms cast up and uh, I think he got some pins in his both hands, his finger and his wrist. I think I posted those on the second post on my Instagram him very fortunate. Um. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, he has you know he has one eye, you know, but the other eye still in there, and um and uh yeah, no, it just says the rest is a little bent. You know. He likes to say you can reach around corners and stuff now with that hand. So it sounds like he's got the right perspective and that he had the right perspective throughout that. How many surgeries on his face were there and you know, just to be honest with you, just the one initial one that night. Um, he had a few. I don't know how many. He would probably be telling that more and when he starts sharing his story, but you know, I know he had a few eye surgeries, you know, um on his good eye, you know, just cosmetic stuff. And then I know he had an ear surgery um like a year and a half ago maybe, so for like three and a half years he couldn't hear out of the bad ear um because the ear canal wasn't end up and sergeant said that they need to wait or something for the scar tissue. So yeah, he was kind of happy, like, you know, out of surgery. A few days later after that year surgery, he's the first time you can hear himself p out of that year. So now he's happy. I don't want both. Your dad sounds like a guy like a lot. He sounds like he's good. He's got the right sense to hear about the whole limb thing. Um, wouldn't you look back on it all? Um? And again, I'm glad after having so many people send me those photos and have so many people talking about this. You know, I'm that's just my life in my perspective. I can't imagine from from her end, you know, being able to tell the story now and get these things out there that so many people just didn't care about or didn't care to try to learn. Um, is there anything else about the attack itself, your emotions or anything you want people to know? Something that you take away from this, Well, take away from it. The main thing I you know that I would tell people to take away from this is a side arm. Basically, aren't a gun or a handgun, doesn't have to be a hanging, but just anything that's attached to your body firearm wise, that's that you can access. In this instance, I know saved his life and obviously probably saved mine because I was getting ready to get impacted. But that's the one thing I say, carry a side arm. I was told a story back in two thousand twelve, UM, kind of similar situation. The guy survived, but it was a second hand story. But the guy he was I asked, that was my question. I was like, I kind of you know, not laughed at him, but chuckled, said why are you carrying that forty four air light? You know, go hung And then he explained that and opened up the whole new eyes. Six months later, I got my handgun and diamond d holster on my rug and UM started carrying it and had an instance with the bear and the alders and dispatched it at twelve feet. And both my hunter and I two years prior to my dad's attack, were very halful. I had that, thankful that I had that, and I was carrying it during my dad's attacked. And that's the reason why UM and he's still alive in this situation. Every situation is different, but this bear was killing him and that's what stopped him. Was that rugory handgun. Yeah, yeah, there's no better there's no better illustration that idea. We do have a lot of discussions here about bear spray versus versus pistol. My philosophy has always been both why not both? Um, you know are company we were with lot here f h F has a a body mount. It's like it goes on the bottom of your buy no harness. So that's one option. But you know, for you, I think I wonder if you would agree that you have to kind of be aware and familiar with your own set up, what holster you're using, you know what, what caliber, what bullet, where you're gonna holster, how you're gonna draw, and those things I'm sure that you did are the instinctual things that you didn't have to worry about fumbling around with when you were sprinting down you know, at probably a crazy speed, even to yourself, to go save your dad. Yes, exactly, UM, yeah, no, I just I'm still caring the same ammunition, Buffalo bore three sixty grain hardcast, because I watched it first hand. It works. Um. I don't recommend any kind of caliber, but I think anything that close will help. Um. The main thing is having that side arm. It's not for hunting, it's for protection, you know, and it's good to have that. I mean, what happens you know the story I got told that you know the bear knocked the rifle out of his hand, and the guy said he as he was playing dead and fumbling around with the Barry said he could have shot at twenty times. So that's kind of what I went off of. And uh, in fact, I carry that handgun and every single hunt, every time I'm in the back country in the state of Alaska, can be a sheep hunter, goat hunt, I'm still carrying it. So yeah, that's the main thing. And yep, Carrett, Carrett, Carrett, and a lot of people say that, you know black bears, you know, Oh, I carried over when I'm you know, on this island when I'm brown beart hunting, but I don't carry it on the black Bear Island. But black bears kill people. So um, every situation is different. But in this situation, I am thankful that I had a firearm or a handgun with me. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm I carry a kimber K six um revolver and that's and I've I'm an East Coast kid, as people know that listen to the show. I'm I lived in Texas for a while, in Illinois for a while, and never lived in a place with a bear population. That I would consider to consider dangerous. But as soon as I moved to Montana, I'm in the community too, in the community of hunters. This is just what you do, UM, and so you don't have to be a hunter, You can be anybody that goes outside UM to listen to your advice and understand. So I like, I like that again, you know, I really do. I will say, Brett, I appreciate the way that you approach this UM. When we first started, the way that you approach wanting to tell the story, you were very cautious about who you were going to tell it to and exactly what you wanted to say and the goals of telling the story. UM. I told told some guys here in the office that I really admired that and appreciated that. So I want to tell you that too, because I think it's you know what, what you're trying to get out of this I think is is admirable. Is just just get that message out. You told me many times that that's what you wanted to talk about. You'll tell the story, but only if UM it ends and exactly what you just said. So, UM, I just wanted you to know I appreciate that and I think hopefully everyone listening to this can take that that from it. Yeah, yeah, thank you very much. Yeah No, I was just yeah, you know, hashtag save a life carry handgun. That's what I was saying in the post. You know, anybody who's in the back country should consider carrying a handgun yea, yea, or any kind of firearm at that matter. Yeah. I mean, as this thing went viral, you were sending me some links. I wasn't aware that Joe Rogan had talked about this. Um, A bunch of a bunch of your high profile Instagram account had had posted it, some of them without your permission, many of them the right without your permission. Um. And so this this was out there in the ether round. A lot of people were talking about this, and they were what they weren't talking about, um, how to prevent it. And so hopefully we'll get just as many people to listen to this and hear your story as amazing as it is. Man, when I'm listening to that, I'm slack, y'all for most of the time. As you describe, you know what, what is only, in my opinion, a pretty heroic act. I think any of us would want to do that to save any anyone. Let alone our life matter. Ye yeah, let let alone our father. So, um, I really do, Like I said, I really do appreciate that part of it. And it's an amazing story. So you know, thanks for sharing it. Yeah, thank you for having me on. So I appreciate it. Yeah, Um, what's your dad up to these days? It sounds like he's he's doing better than a lot of a lot of people would have expected given given the videos. Yeah, yeah, he's doing better. Um, he's adapting. You know, got that hearing out of that one year in the last year and uh, he's just living his life. He's doing pretty good. Um, you know, things are you know a little slower, and you know he's learning, you know, relearning, you know, and he went the biggest thing was he goes seventy seven years with one eye and having adapt to or I mean with two eyes and having adapt to one eye. You know, it's a big transition. So he's working with what he got. Yeah, he sounds like he's pretty good at that all the way from this one. So, I mean it's it's it's great to hear and if if you want to see more of um, what are some pretty amazing adventures and of your own on your personal on a personal level, then your guiding hit hit bred up at at b B B Alaskan one Instagram that's where most of your content lives, or anywhere else they can find your Brett. Yeah, bb Alaska on Instagram and BBB dot com is my website. UM Big Game Guiding and trapping tours and snow machine, etcetera. UM Guide Services in Alaska. So beautiful. Want to leave anybody with you know, your your philosophies, things that might have changed after this attack. Is there anything you know a lot of people have like poetic things they want to say after this. Is there something you got in your head? Yeah? There's two things. Uh. I mean on all my hunts, but I want to emphasize on bear hunting number one, especially on a bear hunt, I will not I mean, I trusted my dad, so I separated from because he taught me everything but one thing. In personal hunting and guiding nowadays, I do not separate from anybody. I stay within ten ft, twenty ft or whatever, no more than twenty ft because when you're not next to me, you know I can't protect you or they can't protect me properly. That's number one, And then number two is especially bear hunting, I would recommend chambering all your rounds, making sure they chamber. Um. Actually, a year after that, I was guiding the sheep hunt. Guy mentioned the word reload. At the time, I was, you know, not really favorable of reloads. But I made the guy chamber room and he had a box of twenty and we found out and we shot the gun at the range and then go off and realized that twelve of the rounds didn't have powder in them. So, um, basically, check all your loads. I shake loads now, and chamber room when I'm hunting in Alaska, especially bear hunting. All right, well that's those two things I would like that. So that's good. Well, that's good. To leave everybody with Brett. We'll check back in with you. Um hopefully maybe one time we can get your dad on or all right, you check back in when you get that full mount of this bare back and and in times when there aren't there's in quarantine restrictions that can maybe fly up and hang out with you and see what it's like up in your neck of the woods. Yeah, for sure, man, that sounds good. All right, thanks Brett. I appreciate it, man. Yeah, thanks a lot. That's it. That's all another episode in the books. Thank you to the entire Bond family, Larraine Phillips, Brett Bond, Brett West Scott, a bunch of other folks that talked to us around this story. It's been interesting to investigate it and learn about it. All of it started because I was interested in hearing the truth in a pretty wild, salacious, bloody, gruesome story out of Alaska. And so it's it's taken us on a couple of weeks long wild ride. Um, Phil, what are you What are you feeling? What are you feeling? Buddy? It's a I mean, it's this guy has too just crazy, wild stories that have happened in his life. They happened just a couple of years apart, which is um uh yeah, I hope, I hope my life stays stays boring. I'll say that, good point, Phil. I'm gonna go home and have another piece of cake. That's right, I'll be fine. But yeah, I mean, you know, deep since there sincere thanks to Brett um for jumping on. I know um as we already talked about here in the show. This is a long I mean, this is a two and a half hour like breakdown of this story. Um, we could have gone probably another two hours more. There's there's a lot here, a lot to uncover. As I was telling somebody earlier, it's kind of like quicksand the more that you struggle to get to the top, the more that you sink in. Um. But that's just goes to show how compelling of a story that we've run into here, and so UM, I'm glad to have brought it to you. As I said, what we have have outlined here today, I think is the truth, as crazy as it sounds. Um, I don't think we'll ever hear anything like it. Phil again, It's just there's just so much going on. So I don't know what we're gonna do next week, but it ain't gonna be this. No better figure it out. Well. We got a lot of um, a lot of interesting emails to catch up on next week. I have a pile of emails here. Eric calls back at it come ending on whether hunting is selfless or selfish. We got lots of emails about exactly what happened during the Turkey season White Claw, all kinds of stuff people really love Shae mahoney, So we'll get to that next week. We're also next week you're gonna hear an interview with Um, one of the first employees of Impossible Meats. Yeah, we're gonna interview the guy had a Hong Kong I believe he's somewhere over there and Um, we're gonna talk about impossible meets phil Um, what they taste like, why they were created, what the future of them is, whether they want me to stop killing things or not? Who knows all of that. Next week UM with one of the original employees of Impossible Meats. Ah. I'm hoping it's going to be a very robust conversation and not a debate, but we shall see. You never know, you never know. Yes, you've proven that. If anything, I've proven that. So again, thanks everybody for listening to this. Check the Mediator dot com. Over the next seven days, we're going to share with you the full story in written form. Thanks to Joe Fernando and Sam Longer for helping me out with that and being a part of this. We will see you next week. Say bye, Phil, you know, because I can't go a week without doing rong Oh without drank,