[DCM90]

Wes Perkins, a resident of Nome, Alaska, experienced a harrowing encounter with a grizzly bear that resulted in severe injuries. The incident occurred on May 16, 2011, while Perkins was on a hunting trip with friends in the Alaskan mountains.

During the hunting trip, Perkins and his companions were tracking a large grizzly bear. Unfortunately, the situation took a dangerous turn when the bear charged at them. In the ensuing attack, Perkins suffered devastating injuries to his face. The bear tore off a significant portion of his face, including his teeth, tongue, and jaw. This left him with extensive damage and required immediate medical attention.

Despite the severity of his injuries, Perkins managed to survive the attack. His survival and subsequent recovery have been considered remarkable, given the extent of the trauma he endured. The incident with Wes Perkins is often cited as one of the most severe and shocking bear attacks in recent history.

After the attack, Perkins underwent numerous surgeries and treatments to address his injuries. His journey through recovery has been challenging, involving significant medical intervention and rehabilitation.

[SimoneFlen']

Jesus! Nice find!

[megaman]

Looks like rescue won’t be anytime soon

[frank_white]

Grizzly encounter.

[richard brou]

If I remember right , they were following a polar bear on jet skies when it turned on him without warning and took his face off !

[hammersquash]

Wes Perkins was the luckiest man to walk the earth, this guy survived the most gruesome bear attack ever.
The bear attack was so horrific, hard to look at or to think about.
The following is a story from Anchorage Daily News about survival, incredible willpower, and how the unbelievable can become the truth.

Wes Perkins is from Alaska, and he knows how lucky he is.
Life is good, but it will never be the same after the unfortunate bear attack that nearly cost him his life.
After 26 surgeries and more than $1 million accumulated in medical expenses later, Wes is getting along. He’s not the man he once was, but he’s still very appreciative to be alive.

According to Anchorage Daily News,



“Wes Perkins is whole in body and still badly disfigured. There is no gentle way to describe his condition. Doctors had to use part of his fibula to create a jaw to replace what the bear ripped off of his face. He still has a tube in his throat. His left eye, which sees only light and dark, weeps constantly. And probably worst of all, for a man who always loved to talk, he is now hard to understand because he speaks with only half a tongue.”

So how did this nightmare of situation come about? It was essentially a bear hunt gone bad, a routine and pleasant hunt that took a turn for the worse when Perkins came across the wrong bear at the wrong time.

Rather than fleeing like most usually do, the bear fed into it’s fighting instinct, as it likely felt threatened. It turned out to be bad news for Perkins.



Perkins, who is a trained paramedic, recalls the attack vividly. He was quoted in the interview with Anchorage Daily News:

“I had to dig stuff out of (my) airway to breathe,” he wrote. “If I was unconscious, I would have died. Also, (as) long as I lay still just right I was able to keep my airway open. I could not move my face sideways or my airway would close. I know if I lost consciousness, I would probably die. So I stayed alert all the way (to Nome), and I could squeeze the hands of my two partners when they asked me questions.”

His partners were Dan Stang, a Nome dentist, and his son, Edward, a student in dentistry school at the time. They shot the 8-foot-tall, 13-year-old grizzly bear off of Perkins, which was the first action made that lead to survival of Wes. That act was accompanied by many others that have allowed Perkins to carry on with life.

And that is the amazing part of this story. A team effort and incredible will power of a human to survive is what helped create this rescue and survival of epic proportions.

Here’s more from the Anchorage Daily News,

Even as the Stangs began life-saving first aid, they were radioing for help from Nome, a community far from anywhere at the tip of the Seward Peninsula jutting into the sea closer to Russia than Anchorage, the urban hub of the 49th state.

Perkins’ brother Nate made the radio call. He didn’t call Alaska State Troopers and wait for others to act. He pretty much single-handedly organized a rescue to lift his brother from the wilderness of the Kigluaik Mountains, about 30 miles east of this small community. “Ace chopper pilot Ben Rowe saved his life,” Nate said at the time, but Rowe was only one of the many who combined to save then 54 year old Wes. Rowe was in the air only minutes after taking a phone call from Nate. As he flew, others were rolling into action, too.

Wes, the Survivor
Wes is getting along as best as he can.

Four months after the attack, Wes is able to get around on his own, but is far from being back to life as he knew it. Everything he consumes comes from a blender now, but its better than being underground. Every day is a day of improvement, and medical staff members are still working on getting him back to his best state.

The detail and information found inside this story will blow your mind. Some of it is extremely gruesome and vivid. “Extraordinary” and “incredible” are the only two words fitting enough to describe the miracle that happened.



Wes wants everyone to be careful, and to remember wild animals are not your friends. They are not good or bad, they are simply wild animals, and that is something to be remembered.

“Some think I was taking pictures,” he wrote. “I did not know the bear was 69 feet away in a snow cave. I would not get 69 feet from a bear in the zoo.

“I had a camera in my pocket, snowgo jacket. So when I stopped, I thought the bear was ahead of me. We saw it had been running. So I stopped to take camera out of pocket and put it in my dash bag as I could shoot the gun.”

The bear attacked as he was doing that.

“I turned and saw the bear, full charge,” he wrote. “I only had time to say, ‘Oh shit!’ But I got (my) gun 1/2 way off my back . . . When I turned around, the bear was that close. I had no time to do anything. Nine steps from 69 feet, according to Fish and Game. Big bear.”

Perkins, who spent his life in Alaska, has a fair bit of experience around grizzlies, but added, “I never had one hide like this one!” What followed after it burst from a snow cave has been an experience he couldn’t imagine in his worst nightmares.

Sources: Anchorage Daily News

[DanteAntonelli]

Looks like a shotgun blast.

[DanteAntonelli]

When you go hunting for wild beasts you risk to be hunted by them and it's only fair.
One on one and still the beast takes the role of the underdog.
Can't blame the bear for acting in self defense.

[Bish82]

I saw this quite a while back, not 100% positive but I'm pretty sure he was attacked by a bear.

[kellyhound]

saw the pics once here: https://www.documentingreality.com/f...barely-164951/

Many reports online telling that the pics are fake and possibly the vid also and not related to perkins but possibly set up for a hoax fundraiser page using his story.

The real story:

The quick shooting of a Nome dentist and his son, along with the first-aid they and others provided a badly mauled hunter, were Tuesday being credited with saving the life of the former chief of the Nome Volunteer Fire Department.

Wesley Perkins is now in the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where surgeons are planning reconstructive surgery to repair the damage done by the bear that attacked him Sunday on Alaska's Seward Peninsula.

The attack lasted only seconds, but left the 54-year-old Perkins near death. Perkins friends Dan Stang, a Nome dentist, and his son, Edward, a student in dentistry school, shot the bear off Perkins, began life-saving first aid, and then radioed for help from Nome.

Perkins' brother Nate, who took the radio call, almost single-handedly organized a rescue to lift his brother from a wilderness area far from the remote Bering Sea community. Wes was flown by helicopter to Nome, stabilized at the Norton Sound Health Corp. hospital there, and on a medevac flight south within hours.

"The care Wes received in the field from the Stangs, the physician and attendant flown to the scene, and the emergency care he received at Norton Sound hospital once he was flown to Nome by ace chopper pilot Ben Rowe saved his life,'' Nate reported Tuesday; "this according to the tending surgeon this morning at Harborview.''

Heroic behavior all around is a testament to the resilience and can-do attitude of those who live in rural Alaska. It is a small miracle they managed to save one of their own.

Wes was bear hunting in a wilderness far from the community when the attack happened. Rescue is difficult in such circumstances. It can sometimes take days to find someone and get them to a hospital.

Nate, however, had a helicopter and a doctor at the scene of his brother's mauling in a little over an hour, and Wes was in a hospital tens of minutes later. "We had him back in Nome as quick as possible," Nate said by telephone from Nome Monday. "All of the ducks were in a row."

The bears are not bad. Neither are they good. They are wild animals, and they act in the way of wild animals. Just hope you are never in a situation where their instinct to fight or flee says "fight." Perkins was there the day that happened.

It is pure luck or a miracle, if you believe in such things, he is alive today. A trained paramedic, he remembers reaching into his throat to pull out pieces of his face to keep his airway open so he wouldn't suffocate after the attack.

"I had to dig stuff out of (my) airway to breathe," he wrote. "If I was unconscious, I would have died. Also, (as) long as I lay still just right I was able to keep my airway open. I could not move my face sideways or my airway would close. I know if I lost consciousness, I would probably die. So I stayed alert all the way (to Nome), and I could squeeze the hands of my two partners when they asked me questions."

Perkins was surprisingly coherent when help arrived, the helicopter pilot said. He indicated his leg and arm were hurt but was unable to talk with medics because of severe injuries to his face and mouth.

“He was responsive, and he was able to respond through hand squeezes, yes or no.”

The bear -- a huge boar -- grabbed Wes by the head. It tore loose his lower jaw, ripped loose teeth, removed "half of his tongue" and damaged his left eye socket, Nate said. Doctors are hopeful they can save the eye. Wes, a well-known and popular figure in Nome, is expected to survive.

so the vid and pics are special effects makeup according to a lot.

But: this might be real but it's another person.
On today’s podcast, we’re joined by MeatEater’s Sam Lungren and Joe Ferronato to discuss one of the wildest stories we’ve ever encountered. It’s the gruesome tale of a grizzly bear attack involving 33-year-old Wasilla, Alaska resident and hunting guide Bret Bohn and his father, Glenn.

Back in 2016 Bret saved his 77-year-old dad by killing a 9-foot grizzly as it mauled his face. Glenn amazingly survived and just as notably, Bret took pictures and video of his dad’s gruesome injuries soon after the bear was dead.

The resulting mix of compelling story and shocking documentation would lay the perfect groundwork for a viral event online. Everyone wanted to know more about the bloody scene, why Bret had taken the photos, and how the hell either of them had survived. We have the exclusive story.
in the podcast they have the guy that took the pics and vid on the phone.
https://www.themeateater.com/listen/...with-bret-bohn

i read this is him 9 days after surgery but that's impossible imo