Man Survives Two Bear Attacks Within Ten Minutes

Shades of The Revenant: A Montana man was jumped on and bitten repeatedly by a charging grizzly bear on Saturday morning and Todd Orr survived by playing dead.

The injured, bleeding man began the three-mile trek back to his vehicle—and was attacked again within 10 minutes by the same bear. The 50-year-old played dead again to survive the second attack, then drove 17 miles to a hospital, the Montana Standard reports. “Life sucks in bear country,” Orr says in a Facebook video recorded before the drive. “She got my head good. I don’t know what’s under my hat … And then my shoulder she ripped up—think my arm’s broke,” he says. “But legs are good, internal organs are good, eyes are good.”

In a later post on Facebook recounting the attack, Orr says he was scouting for elk—and hollering “Hey, bear” every 30 seconds to avoid surprising any bears—when he was first charged by the bear, who had two cubs with her. “I will have to clean out the truck a little better. My girlfriend says it looks like I had gutted an elk in the drivers seat,” he writes.

Madison County Sheriff Roger Thompson says Orr, who used bear spray during the first attack, “did everything he was supposed to do” and while being attacked by the same bear twice is like being struck by lightning twice, Orr is lucky to have survived at all. “I think he should go out and buy a lottery ticket now,” the sheriff says.