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This is unnerved. Welcome back to the Unnerved podcast. It's where normal people share their abnormal stories. And if you enjoy true stories of the strange and terrifying, then you're in the right place. I'm your host, Chris Rickey. A walk in the woods should feel peaceful and inviting, but nature, though it may appear untouched and beautiful, is shared with creatures that are not as keen to share their home with us.
The small, harmless animals will often catch our attention, but we should be concerned about the creatures we don't see until it's too late. And for four college wrestlers, that nightmare became a horrifying reality. In today's story, Kendall and his friends set out on a casual hike in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. What started as a simple outing quickly turned into a life or death battle. This this is story.
My name is Kendall Cummings. On October 15th, almost two years ago now, the day kind of started off like usual Saturday. We had wrestling practice that morning and coach told us it was a nice day. He wanted us to go outside and do something with ourselves and four other buddies decided you're going to go out and go see. We couldn't find any shut antlers. We were like 20 miles outside of Yellowstone on the Cody side. Basically every year the deer and elk leads their horns and
we'd go out there and find them. So we were out there doing that. The day was going good. Be out there from like 10:00 quid, so 6:37. We'd walked all day long. We walked there at the end of the mountain and the sun was starting to go down. We figured we'd better head back to a truck so we can make it back in the light. On our way back me and my buddies named Brady.
We decided to stay up on top of the mountain and the other two went to the bottom of the mountain and we're just going to head straight back for the trucks. We get to a spot where the trees are pretty thick. I went through the trees and as soon as I got to the other side, my buddy said, hey, Kendall, there's a lot of bear sign right here. As soon as you say it jumped out, I could just hear crashing through the bushes.
And then I saw the bear. When the bear was coming at him, he put his arm up to block it I guess, and do all he could do. And the bear bit his arm and snapped it. And it happened so fast and I was yelling at the bear. Hey bear, I tried to grab the sheds from my backpack and they were clipped in there. I remember I threw a stick and just kind of bounced off and threw a rock and done the same
thing. And I kind of looked over my shoulder and saw the rest of the mountain And I I did think about running, but it was a split second I thought about doing that and then I just jumped down and grabbed the bear. I don't know if there was a whole lot of thought behind that one, but put one hand on his ear and the other one and on his scruff right below his head and his neck, and I just pulled as hard as I can. The bear didn't even move it
kind of like slow. He turned his head and looked at me. What the heck's pulling on me? I was thinking, oh, I guess I got to run now. So I turned and I started running. I probably took two or three steps. It knocked me onto the ground, kind of swiped me, pushed me into the trees. It could have done whatever it wanted to me. I had never felt strength like that. It was really unreal how strong
those creatures are. I was sticking my hands in its mouth so it couldn't kind of get in my neck and all of a sudden it just runs away. I started yelling out for my buddy that got attacked with me, started yelling out, breathing or yeah, you all right? I didn't hear. He didn't say anything back. All I could hear was the bear was back and he was breathing heavy right behind me. I couldn't see it. It was kind of like if you're in a corn maze and you can just see where the animals travel
through. I couldn't hear him, but I could hear him breathing heavy and kind of snarling through his nose. And he sounded pretty upset, kind of watching where I'm hearing this sound from and I just see his head. And then it turned and looked right at me. It just had little teeny tiny black, black eyes. It was like 2 marbles and
charged me again. It got my arm and it got my leg and I remember kind of squeezing his neck as hard as I could, but when it had my arm, it would pick me up almost off the ground and shake me. After that, it bit onto my head. It's bottom jaw kind of got locked up in where your top and bottom jaw connect, and it's top just kind of slipping, rolling off my head. I remember like just grinding.
I didn't really feel none of it. It's kind of like when you go to the dentist and they numb in. You can feel that they're working on your teeth, but it doesn't hurt. I think I just had so much adrenaline. I remember when it did bite through my head, it was like if you twisted the water bottle a whole lot and poked it with a pen and just all that pressure escaped. That's what it felt like in my head. That's when I was like, man, this is it.
I guess I'm going to die. When I felt pressure release in my head, I, I thought that was it. And I laid down and I thought that's I can't do nothing else. So I did just kind of lay down and limp. After that, the bird kind of put its paw on my head and put some weight down and then it got off of me and scooped some dirt on top of me and wandered off Bears and like mountain lions and
stuff. When they kill a deer or elk, they they'll bury it kind of preserves it, keeps the birds off of it. I was laying there simply, I'm going to die. I went to get my phone out of my pocket. I was going to call my mom and kind of let her know. But the bear, when it bit my leg, it bit into my phone and just crunched it broke it. So I was just laying there kind of trying to collect myself.
After a while, I, I unclipped my backpack and I remember that that's when the pain was kind of coming. When I unclipped my backpack, I felt like every single one of my fingers was broken. That hurt a lot. When it bit my arm, it had tore the bicep completely off, so that hurt. Started walking down the mountain, looking over my shoulder. I kept looking back and I was scared I was going to come back and get me, but fortunately it didn't.
I walked probably like a plug a mile before I found one of the two buddies that had gone to the bottom of the hill, my buddy Brady. As soon as I pulled the bear off of him, he rundown on 911 and I found those two and told him what had happened. The one of them stayed with Brady and the other one was coming back up for me. I met him halfway. I remember asking him I was like Gus, how do I look? And he's like, you look, you
look good man. I was like no, no, no, no, not the people eyeing me. How do I look? And he's like, you look good. We started wandering off and had my arm over him and he was kind of helping me and limp down the mountain when we got to the bottom. When you call 911, something like that happens. They alert everybody in the area. They say, you know, there's a bear attack right above your ranch. The ranchers had met us at the bottom of the hill and they're side by side.
They zipped us over to the trailhead and there was an ambulance waiting there. They cut all my clothes off and checked me out and then giving me some blood and stuff and then a helicopter. Kane picked me up and got to the hospital in Billings. They cleaned up the dry blood and checking out my wounds even more. And then they wheeled me back for surgery. And I remember the doctor kind of saying, Are you ready? And I said Yep. And then I woke up. I think I had 70 staples in my head.
And they said hundreds of stitches altered around my body. I guess they when they were doing surgery on my face, they found pieces of the bear's tooth up in my cheek, apparently don't take good care of their teeth and they fall off when they're chewing on hard bone like that. College friends and wrestlers who were attacked by a bear in Wyoming. They fought it off. And this morning they're sharing their story. Modalenge joins us with more about how they survive and got away.
Good morning, Mola. Good morning, Michael. Yeah, these guys are lucky to be alive, and they know it. They tell me that at one point they were convinced that one of them wasn't going to make it, that he was dead. But his teammates, his friends, they wouldn't let that happen. Just for us to walk out of there alive, all four of us, it's a miracle. It really is with the situation
we were in with. This morning, 4 college wrestlers grateful to be alive and for each other after perhaps their toughest match going toe to toe with a grizzly bear. I just knew I had to protect my head and, and just kind of fight for life, you know, it's life or death.
Northwest College students Braden Lowry, Kendall Cummings, August Harrison and Oran Jackson were searching for fallen antlers in Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest on Saturday when all of a sudden, Lowry and Cummings came face to face with the Bear. The Bear pounced, tackling Lowry first. The bear came running out of the trees. I I didn't even see it until it was right in front of me but I heard the crashing and and the only thing I could yell was. Bear, bear and.
I yelled. Baron the Bear tackled me first. Seeing his teammate being mauled, Cummings took the fight to the bear, yelling, punching and grabbing it until the bear turned on him. And knocked me onto the ground and then with its head pushed me on the ground all the way up against the trees, and then kind of pinned me up there. And it was attacking me for a second. It was. I was putting my hands in its mouth and stuff so it wouldn't be chewing on my neck and
everything. The bear finally walking away, but the horror not over. Just when they thought they were to clear, the bear returned. I. Called out to Brady. I was like Brady. You all right? Where you at, Brady? And then? I didn't hear nothing from Brady, but I heard the bear kind of grunting behind me and I heard it walking and then I saw it again and it came and it attacked me again. Eventually, Lowry and Cummings able to escape, calling 911 and reuniting with their teammates.
I spoke with the lady on the phone, the dispatch lady, and we kind of coordinated a plan to get the flight for life there. I remember telling her that's our brother up there. Cummings airlifted to Billings Clinic Hospital, getting 60 staples in his head. Lowry taken to the same hospital by ambulance, treated for a compound fracture in his left arm. Surprised to hear that they fought for each other. The way they did. No, no, not at all. Not at all.
I, I, you know, growing up in a wrestling world, it's just the kind of brotherhood that there is. They'll fight for each other. Experts saying the outcome could have been much worse if they didn't have each other and. The two against one seem to, you know, tip the scales to their advantage, and he was very lucky to chase the bear off that way. Now, as they recover, broken and bloody, their friendship stronger than ever. I'm happy that everyone's here
and everyone's all right. In the last few weeks, there has been an increase in reported bear activity in this region, especially at low elevations, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. They tell me that that is common this time of year as bears are more active in their search for food Guys. Thank you. Just even think about it. That is frightening.
Thank goodness they're all OK. I was in the hospital for five or six days and then they let me go and I went back to the college town that I was in and collected some things and my parents took me down to my house where I live and they took care of me for two weeks. I think I had a Walker and everything. But after two weeks, it got kind of that good and I would say it was like 2 months or so and now I was kind of lightly wrestling again, doing some of that stuff.
And by the end of the year, I was totally wrestling and my buddy actually got to compete again night and year. We were practice partners right there towards the end. So that was that was cool. Tonight here on the campus of Northwest College in Powell, an encouraging update on 4 wrestlers, 2 of them lucky to be alive. I've probably told the story 1000 times. Hundreds, probably. A lot. A lot, and it serves up a motion every time.
The story is well documented, even drawing national attention. This is Kendall Cummings. He and three of his wrestling teammates were shed hunting or searching for antlers about a year and a half ago. Here they'd split into pairs. Me and my buddy unfortunately got a attacked by a bear. He got attacked first. I ended up grabbing the bear, pulling it off of him. You heard that right. Cummings attempted to pull the bear off Brady, Lowry and. The bear chewed on me for a while.
Fortunately, I lived through it and my friends came up the hill for me and we all made it out of their lives. Oren Jackson vividly remembers first sight of his friend. The most gruesome thing really was when we found Kendall. He was walking down to us and his entire body was just covered in blood. Cheek was all tore up and he was scalloped on the head. Skin pretty much falling off his face and covered and drenched in blood.
Reflecting now on his impulse to physically attack a bear, Cummings admits he sometimes thinks to himself, who does that? I do it from time to time, kind of think back on it. It was just instincts and it happened so fast. Being underneath it felt huge, but I bet it was like 400 lbs. So what are these four friends up to today? Well, three of them spend a lot of time here in the team's small locker room. Slash home away from home. We take turns getting longer
done. Jackson is ranked #5 in the country at 165 lbs and wrestles this week as Northwest takes 8 to the national tournament. This will be Jackson's last as he heads toward graduation. My goal is to be a national champion. If if you're not going to the national tournament with that goal, then you shouldn't be going at all. As for Cummings?
Kind of train with the guys and helping them get to where they want to be. He'll graduate with a business degree and wants to open a real estate brokerage. August Harrison graduated last year and is now a volunteer assistant coach for the Trappers. It's awesome. I love watching the kids improve every day and helping them get to to help them make their goal. He's been a big help to me, helping me, you know, perfect
little details in my wrestling. And this is Lowry, the friend coming saved that Saturday afternoon. He suffered a compound forearm fracture, grinded through a three month recovery, then completely defied odds at last year's national tournament. Having not won much, the guy rolls all the way to the semifinals with three pins, beating a four seed and a five seed, and ends up on the podium in the 5th place. Lowry graduated.
He's now a plumber and volunteer, coaching at a high school in Idaho. Though distance separates him, the four remain close. Huge success story for each and every one of these young men. They do still shed hunt, though, more prepared and vigilant. There's a lot of mountains that are much safer than where we were that day, so we try to hang out there as much as we can. Ziegler admits he's always been uneasy with the outings, and now more than ever. Yeah, I'm still uncomfortable with it.
Just the thought of it terrifies me. Still, he's proud. Northwest College has provided every opportunity for the guys to succeed, and they've done it. True resilience, you know, in the face of adversity, they made it through. If anyone else has concern about being out in the wild and hike and whatnot, what words of advice would you give to them as far as keeping the situation
from happening to them? Be prepared and definitely have bear spray if a guns you're saying go for it and I think I'm going to go buy a dog from the pound or something, start hiking with it. But I think that we're in the wrong place at the wrong time and we were, we were in his house. So that would be my advice. Just be prepared. It can definitely happen, and it happens quick. In the United States, there are an average of 27 bear attacks per year.
Of these, a small number are fatal, with studies suggesting an average of two to three fatal grizzly bear attacks. Non fatal attacks are more common, with approximately 30 to 40 reported each year. It's likely that when Kendall stopped fighting the bear, the bear thought he was dead, which in the end saved his life. Experts say that playing dead is exactly what you're supposed to do once you're being attacked by
a brown bear. They say to lay on your stomach, hover your neck with your hands, and play dead, then give the bear time to clear the area before you get up to escape. The advice online for bear encounters varies so much based on specific circumstances that it's probably best to do your own research before planning any recreational activities in bear
country. But everyone seems to agree that hiking in groups is helpful, which is a safety tip that can also help you in other dangerous scenarios that could be awaiting you. Thanks again for listening to Unnerved. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. And if you guys want to see photos related to each episode, including this one, be sure to follow our Instagram at Unnerved Podcast.
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