01x11 - We Were Being Hunted...

[bunniefuu]

PAUL: I spent a lot of time
in the great outdoors.

There's the visual beauty.
It's just spectacular.

There's this whole cycle of life.
This beautiful, touching love and care.

But at the other side of it,
there's this incredible brutality.

[tense music]

NARRATOR:
Zimbabwe, landlocked in Southern Africa.

Tourists travel from all
over the globe to witness

an abundance of wild animals
in their natural habitat.

Those tourists depend on tough,
experienced guides to keep them safe.

Guides like Paul Templer.

I grew up-- at the time,
the country was called Rhodesia,

in the midst of a vicious civil w*r.

So, I served in the military for a while,

then I spent some time
gallivanting around the globe,

and after years of being away from Africa,

being dropped back into nature,
it was like this incredible love affair.

I went and started an apprenticeship
to become a guide.

We were amongst lions
and elephant and buffalo

and crocodiles and hippos
and snakes and scorpions.

There were land mines, rapids,
there was any number of things

that could go horribly wrong.

And if you guided long enough, they would.

NARRATOR: Late afternoon, March.

Paul prepares for a canoe tour
down the majestic Zambezi River,

known not only
for it's wild untamed beauty,

but also for its many dangers, including
crocodiles, hippos, and Victoria Falls,

one of the seven wonders
of the natural world.

PAUL: We were getting ready to do
what was called "the Royal Drift".

It's just this incredible canoe trip.

You spend about two hours or so
canoeing down the mighty Zambezi River,

your end point is
just above Victoria Falls.

NARRATOR: The group sets off,
Paul in a canoe with his clients,

followed by two apprentice tour guides,
Evans and Ben.

His friend and fellow guide,
Mac, rides alone in a small kayak

to act as safety should any trouble arise.

Paul is a, a big guy.
Big, strong guy, physically imposing.

If you're on the river with him,
or in the bush with him,

it was reassuring.
He was one of those guides

that you know wasn't going
to let you down, he was pretty solid.

As we drifted down the river,
a pod of hippos came up ahead of us,

but we were close enough,
yet far enough for everyone to,

to enjoy the experience.

And being a guide and being trained,
I knew that looking at

where the hippos were
and understanding about hippo behavior,

I knew that if I followed shallow water
around the hippos,

I'd be absolutely fine, I'd be safe.

And my gut told me that
the safe track was to go left.

And I followed my gut. So we went left.

And I followed the shallow water,
and sure enough, I made my way

around the hippo to the relative safety
of this narrow channel.

We just sat there, soaking in
all the peace and the tranquility.

We were less than a mile
above Victoria Falls, the sun was setting.

And it was just that beautiful glow
that comes at dusk.

When suddenly there was just... [grunts]

[screams]

PAUL: Unfortunately,
I knew that sound all too well.

A hippo had hit the back of Evans' canoe.

NARRATOR: The mighty hippopotamus
is a massive semi-aquatic mammal

native to sub-Saharan Africa.

It can weigh over 7,000 pounds.

Hippos have tusks
that can grow up to 20 inches long.

Fantastic swimmers, they can stay
under water up to five minutes.

CAMILLE: Hippos are widely
regarded by African wildlife professionals

as being one of the most
unpredictable large mammal species

to encounter in the bush.

NARRATOR: Dr Camille Fritsch
is a large herbivore ecologist

at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa

and has been studying hippos
in this region for years.

Although Paul's group is feeling
the full brunt of the hippo strike,

these animals don't seek conflict
with humans.

CAMILLE: A lot of human and hippo
wildlife conflict

takes place across Africa,
but it's not because hippos

are actually targeting these people,
they're herbivores,

they don't wanna k*ll people.

It's just because
they're both sharing the same resources.

Hippos have these super abilities

that other mega herbivores
in Africa don't have.

They have this incredible
strength in their body,

this incredible ability to run
on land at 18-20 miles per hour.

They have this amazing ability to swim
where they actually porpoise in the water.

They run on the bottom of the
ground and project themselves

off the bottom of the ground
and swim like a submarine

would through a river.

PAUL: I turned just in time
to see Evans flying through the air.

- [yells]
- Before he splashed into the river.

And I noticed that there was
a female hippo and her calf nearby.

Where Evans had been
knocked into the river,

the way the current was flowing,
he was gonna wash into them,

and that would not be good.

So, I needed to get Evans out.

I didn't have time to get my clients out,
so I turned my canoe backwards

and I back paddled it towards Evans.

I was getting pretty close when I saw
this wave cruising in towards me.

And that's a sign of something large
coming at you under water.

And given where we were at,

I thought it's either a really big
crocodile, or it's a hippo.

But I knew that if I slapped the river
with the blade of my paddle,

it would make this loud percussion, slap.

And that was usually enough noise
to deter whatever was charging in at you.

So I slapped the water,
and sure enough, whatever it was stopped,

because the wave dissipated,
and it just kind of bumped the canoe up,

and it shook around a little bit.

I went back to paddling.
Evans was scrambling towards my boat.

And the last thing we needed
was someone panicky

trying to get in a boat,
so I needed to calm him down.

I calmed him down, positioned my canoe,

lent over to grab a hold of him,
and as our fingers almost touched,

the water between us just erupted.

And everything just went dark
and strangely quiet.

JOHN: It was important
for all of us to get that break

from an urban lifestyle and being rushed,
to being really in nature.

It's quiet, it's a great place
to just get away,

- relax and be at peace.
- [growls]

NARRATOR: The Pacific Northwest
of the United States,

known for its beautiful coastline, lush
interior, and spectacular mountain ranges,

deep in the Cascade mountain region,

old growth forests
support a thriving ecosystem,

exactly why nature lover
and public servant,

John Chelminiak, comes here
for a respite from his busy city life.

I served 16 years
on the Bellevue City Council,

my last two years as the Mayor.

Being a City Councilman
takes a lot of time.

It was harder to get away.

But, it was important for
my family to be in nature,

and we found this piece of property,
and we built a second home.

The property's right next
the Wenatchee Okanogan National Forest.

So you're literally in the
forest when you're up there.

The whole family liked being there.
There were lots of family things to do.

MEGAN: My dad really
loves to be out, outdoors.

He would always take me
on hikes everywhere,

and we'd always go down to the lake.
This area is really gorgeous.

There's a ton of wildlife,
and you will just see deer everywhere.

I do know that there have been
scarier animals there in the past.

Like, mountain lions.

JOHN:
Cougar and black bear are in the area,

but I think we felt so comfortable,
and so much at peace there,

that you would never think that something
like an attack would happen.

NARRATOR:
On a cool Friday in September,

John, Megan, his wife, Lynn,
and their two dogs head up to the hideaway

in the Cascades, hoping for a peaceful
weekend of rest and relaxation.

Pretty normal Friday.
We had a good traffic day.

It was very much a normal arrival.

MEGAN: So, I'm working with
my mom to help clean the cabin

and change sheets out, make sure
that everything's put away properly,

and while me and my mom are doing that,

my dad goes and takes
both of our dogs on a walk.

It was getting close to 8:00.

The sun has set, it's dark out,
you need a light to really see.

I turned on the headlamp,
got the dogs kind of straightened out.

We were walking down the driveway,
the dogs were kind of spinning

at my feet at this point,
and having a little trouble with them

and I get to the bottom of the driveway
and we took a few steps out

onto the roadway, didn't go very far.

And that's when I heard
the brush up ahead of me break.

It's a very recognizable sound,

it's the sound of a large animal
going through brush.

I froze, the dogs froze.
It got our attention.

And then in spit second,
this other worldly exhale comes.

[snorts]

It was loud, and what it said
to me was I was in trouble.

And then I can hear the paws pounding
along the pavement,

and I know exactly what it is.
That's a black bear.

NARRATOR: The American black bear,
the most common bear in North America,

with an estimated 300,000
in the United States alone.

Typically found roaming in the forest,
mountains and swaps,

they can grow up to 650 pounds.

Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant,
a researcher at UC Santa Barbara,

is a large carnivore ecologist
and black bear expert.

Black bears eat a lot of things, but
people and dogs are not any of them.

But, black bears have the ability
to be incredibly deadly.

Their strength often
surprises us as humans.

Black bears know that they have the jaws

and the paws to make
some serious damage.

Bears can rip logs to shreds in seconds.

They can take car doors off,
they can rip garage doors to pieces.

Bears are very, very capable
of using their body to destroy.

JOHN: We see the bear come into the light.
I know immediately we're in trouble.

Her snout is down, she's running fast,
and she just leaps directly into my chest.

I didn't play a lot of football,
but it's like that perfect tackle.

- And everybody goes flying.
- [yells]

RAE: Black bears are really, really fast,
meaning they can run faster than humans.

I mean, over 25 miles per hour.

So it is impossible for a human
to outrun a black bear.

[growls]
[rips]

I'm trying to figure out,
in a sense, what's going on,

but in a sense,
I know exactly what's going on,

I've been attacked by a bear.

The adrenaline kicks in,
the survival instinct kicks in.

I know I'm in a horrific fight,
I know that it's a fight for my life.

I'm just thinking about survival.

[yells]
[growls]

JOHN: I go down on the roadway.
I'm stunned.

I got up off of the ground, and I can
hear the bear a little farther away.

She starts coming back at me.

Kind of comes up tall and tries to grab
onto me as going up high.

She was scratching at my face, clawing
at my face, clawing at my upper body.

[grunts]
[growls and rips]

I can feel that she's biting.

I can hear the damage
that she's doing to my scalp and my skull.

[yells]

You can just hear it, it's a grinding
sound that you hear in your head.

Whether or not a black bear has ever been
in an altercation with a human,

[squeals]

It definitely instinctually knows
that the head is the vital point.

Head and neck is where they're
best able to, honestly, make a k*ll.

And they know that.

[squeals]

So, this attack to the head
and neck area was a calculated,

but also instinctually driven behavior.

All I think of is getting her off of me.

I'm right handed, and I think,

"Keep her on your left
because you can punch with your right,

that's the hardest thing that you can do
to her is punch with your right."

I punch, I'm trying to hit
as hard as I can.

Pushing as hard as I can to get her off.

RAE: When a black bear is on
top of you, attacking you,

the advice is to fight back.

Black bears are usually
unaccustomed to being engaged

with in a fighting posture,
and so, our understanding is that

if you defend yourself against a black
bear, it should retreat and let you go.

JOHN: I go to the ground,
and all of a sudden, it's quiet.

I don't know where she is.

I do know where the dogs are.

I reach down, I grab their leashes, and
I begin to run back the way that I came.

The adrenaline is running so high,
I'm not feeling anything.

That night, I didn't feel pain.

That's what it is like to be in a fight
for your life, you just don't feel it.

I begin to go up the driveway,
and all of a sudden,

[growling]

She appears again,
comes across the angle of the driveway,

and at this point,
the bear jumps over the top of the dogs

and is covering the dogs.

Instinct kicks in, I grab the leashes, and
I pull as hard as I can and they come out.

I squared off with her again,
she's in front of me now.

She gets herself as tall as she can.

And she hits me
on the left side of my face.

RAE: One thing that they can do
is stand up on their hind legs

and use their paws
and claws very independently.

It allows them to fight almost
like a boxer can fight,

so while biting and using
those canine teeth can be very supportive

to a bear's mission
to make some damage,

those claws are really what
they're best able to maneuver.

[yells]

I can I feel the rip.
I can feel that she hit me in the eye.

There's a flash of light.
And I know...

my left eye is gone.

NARRATOR:
On the Zambezi River in Southern Africa,

tour guide Paul Templer finds himself
immersed in total darkness

and in the mouth of something.

PAUL: Confused and disorientated,
I don't know what's going on.

[screams]

There's this, like, vice-like grip,
and my arms are pinned to my side,

and my head is jammed in who knows what.

[grunts]

And I can feel this incredible pressure
crushing down on my lower back.

My mind immediately went to a crocodile,

I did not wanna be attacked
by a crocodile.

And if I was inside a crocodile,
I was inside a really big crocodile.

I was able to move my one hand, and moving
my hand around, I could feel the bristles.

- [grunts]
- So at least now I knew where I was.

I was up to my waist
down a hippo's throat!

CAMILLE: This is the skull
of a full grown hippo.

So if you can imagine,
this hippo came out the water

with his jaw probably open
at least this much, at 150 degrees.

Plucked Paul out of the canoe.

Paul's head is probably somewhere in here,
and his hips and torso are out here.

Paul's a big person, he weighs 200 pounds.

For him to fit inside the hippo's mouth,
it would've had to be quite a large hippo.

PAUL: I can feel my head is wedged,
it's locked as if it's in a vice.

And my shoulders are wedged.

I can feel my legs whisking around like
I'm being thrashed around under water.

And somehow or another,
I manage to stay calm,

and I push and pulled,
wriggled and nothing.

Nothing I did seemed to have any effect,
and then it must have been the position

I was lodged down the throat or something,

but the hippo loosened
its grip long enough

for me to, like,
pull myself out and escape.

As I burst to the surface,
I came face to face with Evans.

We just, like, started at each other,
I'm like...

"We got to get out of here!"

Well, the common advice we would give
is get away from the canoe.

The hippo's gonna come back
and go for the big object.

CAMILLE:
Hippos can be extremely territorial.

They may have a tendency
to attack some things

that maybe seem foreign in the habitat,
but their eyesight is notoriously

kind of not as good as their ears
and nose are at smelling and hearing.

So when the hippo's under water,
it may be difficult

to make out exactly what's around him,
and therefore he just attacks anything

that startles him
or intrudes on his territory.

PAUL: So, I took a few strokes
and it seemed OK,

but I got a sixth sense, and I turned and
I looked back, and Evans is overwhelmed.

He was barely staying afloat.

So I went back to get
a hold of him when...

Coming--
[screams]

I just felt myself yanked under water.

The moment I was able to get my senses,
I looked down,

and I could see the top of his snout
just below waist level,

and so I knew
that I was inside the hippo again.

NARRATOR: As John Chelminiak
wrestles with the black bear

outside his cabin
in the Cascade Mountains,

his family inside is completely unaware.

MEGAN: So, I'm working with my mom,
and I notice that our two dogs

are at the back door.
They seemed very, very panicked.

I let the dogs in, and my mom comments
how this is very strange.

She wonders where my dad is, and
then we hear a noise coming from outside.

It was someone calling out for help.

And she hears the words "bear", and then
she recognizes the voice as my dad's.

JOHN: She's really done
a lot of damage at this point.

I've lost an eye, I'm acting on instinct,
it's in the dark.

I'm staggering.
I'm having trouble continuing to stand.

During this, I don't know
if it's ever going to end.

But I think the only way it may have ended
is with me dead.

MEGAN: My mom tells me to grab
her phone, and call 911,

and I immediately am terrified.

I told the 911 operator that I was
at our cabin at Lake Wenatchee,

and that my dad had been
attacked by a bear.

At that point, she asks me
what our address is,

being as I am 11, and it's not our
regular home, I had absolutely no idea.

NARRATOR: Out in the driveway,
the former mayor of Bellevue, Washington,

is running out of options.

He digs deep, knowing this could be
the last chance to save himself.

I've been involved
in a lot of things in life,

I'm not a person who is prone to violence,
but it's instinct.

I just don't like to lose.

When you're in politics,
you like to win every vote.

So now, all of a sudden,
she's going for the k*ll.

She got ready to come for one more
and I stepped back,

and I came up hard with my knee,
and I make a good connection.

I can hear a crack.

I knew that I had done damage.
I knew that she felt it.

I had gotten her attention,
and I think that put some fright in her.

And now, I think she's frightened of me.

NARRATOR: Underneath the Zambezi River,
Paul Templer is once again trapped

in the jaws of a large hippo
and fighting for his life.

He would pull me under water
and then spit me out.

And then bite again
and throw me in the air,

catch me and then I'd go under water,
and he would bite rapidly.

I just see him coming in, with his jaws
wide open, and then he like...

[grunts]
Scores this direct hit.

And so now, my legs are outside
one side of his mouth

and my arms, head and
shoulders outside the other.

And I'm trying to like,
beat on him, and nothing.

Nothing I do has any effect on it.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt,
I know I can't win this fight,

I can only survive it.

So my strategy just goes to,
"I just have to stay alive."

CAMILLE: Hippos have
these incredible weapons in their mouths,

these two canine tusks that can grow
the side of your flexed arm,

and then the two large pointed
incisors in the middle.

Because of the massive strength
that it has in its jaws,

it's able to push these massive tusks
through pretty much anything

that gets in its mouth,
just amazing strength.

PAUL: So, the hippo bit onto my arm,
and just...

I watched it as the bones just, like,
shattered and broke

and his tusk pulled back, and I think
the medical term is "degloved",

as the skin just got ripped from my arm,
and I just remember

this feeling of, like...
[groans]

The hippo throws me away again, and
then round three is he grabs a hold of me

and decides, "Okay, can't break this guy,"
so we're gonna dive for deep water,

and we're just gonna sit
on the bottom of the river.

I can remember laying there,
pinned inside the hippo's mouth,

its tusks boring through my chest
and my stomach

and all I can see is that light
and that scenery,

and my blood mingling with the water.

At first I remember wondering, "Am I gonna
bleed to death, or am I gonna drown?"

And lay there for a little bit longer,
then I remember wondering,

"Between the hippo and I,
who can hold their breath the longest?"

I don't know how long we stayed there.

I do know that time passes very slowly if
you're in the jaws of a submerged hippo.

And suddenly,
the hippo came to the surface,

lurched through it
and spat me out yet again.

This time when I broke surface, I looked,
and there in front of my nose

was the front of Mac's little red kayak.

I grabbed a hold of the handle
on the boat's nose.

The hippo's right behind me.

So I'm busy shouting at him
to get his feet up, get his feet up.

Because he's a big bloke,
and he's hanging down in the water,

the current is pushing us into the hippo,
and I can't backpedal hard enough.

And he gets over the top of the kayak,
and I manage to then paddle out,

away from the hippo,
while it's still attacking him.

The hippo stayed there, and with
his threat to stay with his jaws wide,

[imitates hippo]
he's letting us know that we're not done.

MAC: We got just off-shore
from the island.

But shallow enough that I could
jump out the canoe and grab him

and pull him up onto the rock.

At which point,
my kayak paddle floated away.

Once Mac got me to the rock,
they just sat there

and stared at me with this look of horror
and, like, disbelief.

I could see Ben, I could see Mac.
"Where's Evans?"

"He's gone mate, he's gone."

NARRATOR: In the Cascade
Mountains of Washington State,

John Chelminiak seems to have finally
stopped the brutal attack of a black bear.

JOHN: I knew when I made
that connection with the knee

I had hurt her in some way.

She slowed down after that.
And there's this moment of calm.

The bear's not attacking,
and I think that's the point

that she decided to go do something else.

And she stopped coming after me.

NARRATOR: With help from her mother,
Megan gives the 911 operator

the correct address
as they rush out to try and help John.

As we open the side door,
we see a figure slowly

leaving from the front of the door.

The bear literally went up
a retaining wall right by her.

At that point, my mom
instructed me to stay inside.

She goes out the side door
and slammed the door shut.

JOHN: She came down to me, she says
that it looked like my head was caved in.

She took off her shirt,
she put it over my head.

I'm hearing the contact
that she has with 911.

LYNN [over phone]:
There's a bear up here, please help me!

And that started the process
of getting an aid unit to me.

LYNN [over phone]: Oh, God,
his head is open! He's dying.


Where is the bear now?

JOHN: I'm thinking the bear is gone.
But it's still there.

The bear is pacing on the roadway
in front of the cabin.

Just back and forth.
And working its way closer.

RAE: It's not typical to see this type
of behavior from black bears.

Usually, they don't attack at all,
and if so, if they are injured

in the process, they'll make
their own escape to protect themselves.

I feel very strongly that
there was something about this home,

something about this cabin that was
super important to the black bear.

It somehow felt that it needed
the resources available at this property

and was willing to do almost anything
to defend their access to those resources.

JOHN: I'm yelling for her
to go back inside.

But she stays out there until
the emergency medical crew can arrive.

NARRATOR: After 15 grueling minutes,
paramedics arrive on the scene.

JOHN: First person out of the ambulance

yells to his partner,
"Don't get stuff out."

We're just gonna load him and go.

JOHN: I don't have to ask if it's bad,
I know it's bad.

I know I'm bleeding and hurt badly.

I have a sense of feeling
how clammy and sticky I am,

especially my face, but even my body.

And it's hard to believe that I just did
not feel pain during any of this.

I am just thinking, "Get to the hospital."

NARRATOR:
On the shores of Africa's Zambezi River,

tour guide Paul Templer
finally reaches relative safety

after repeated attacks by a hippopotamus.

PAUL: I felt myself starting to panic.

My radio, my first aid kit,
my g*n were all gone.

And then I made the mistake
of looking at myself.

I was a mess.
My body was punched so full of holes,

I could see why everyone had
that "dead man walking" look

as they would take these little glances
in my direction.

My left arm from the elbow up,
it had been crushed to a pulp,

and from the elbow down, most of the skin
had been pulled off the bones,

and the bones had been crushed.
I tried to move my arms, I couldn't.

My left foot looked like
someone had try to beat a hole

through it with a hammer.

MAC: By the time
I've now got him in the shore,

he's almost bled out.

So, with no first aid kit, all I can do is
try and stop bleeding as much as possible.

So, I tore my shirt up and
tourniquet the arm above

where all the damage is
and tourniquet the foot

which had the hole bitten
right through it.

PAUL: Fortunately, at that point,
the way the body

processes extreme trauma
and that kind of situation,

I wasn't feeling any pain.

But as I'm speaking to Mac,
blood starts bubbling out of my mouth,

and I know right away
that one of the hippos tusks

must have punctured my chest cavity.

And I know that's not good,
and I know that we need to do

something about it quickly.

MAC: Basically, his lungs are collapsing
because the diaphragm's been punctured.

So, yeah, that pushed things up
a notch them because that is--

that suddenly becomes very
life threatening,

and we didn't really have anything
we could use to fix that.

The only thing I could think of
was we had cling wrap on the snacks

and I put that over the holes
in his back to try

and get some integrity
back into the chest cavity,

so he could breathe again.

It seemed to work, he managed to--
the lungs re-inflated,

and he managed to breathe.

NARRATOR: Although they have momentarily
escaped the rogue hippopotamus,

their current refuge is an isolated
strip of land that no vehicle can reach.

They are stranded and running out of time.

PAUL: With the sun setting,
we couldn't rely on anyone finding us,

and when I evaluated our options,
we had two canoes left and one paddle.

So, my plan was to leave Mac
with the clients

and to get Ben to paddle me.

We would follow the current,
try and get past the hippo,

who was still sitting there, lurking.

And, the pain was rising.

I'd gone from being in the state
where there was no pain,

to pain was coming in waves.

And I kind of felt like
I had this moment of choice,

it was, "Should I go, or should I stay?"

Should I just close my eyes
and drift off and call it a day,

or should I fight my way
through this and stick around?

And I remember saying to Mac,
"Hey Mac, please tell my family

I'm sorry and that I love them,"

it was my great big farewell,
we'll all agree.

So I just slapped him and said, "No,
you're gonna have to do that yourself."

Shook him around a bit until he woke up
a little, and then just said,

"Just hold on, I'm just gonna
get you to the bank."

PAUL: And with that, he just kicked
our canoe out into the current.

MAC: I did think that's the last
I'm gonna see of him.

I thought he was going
to die on the way out.

PAUL: Time really slowed down then.

I could hear the hippo making
its threat sounds... [imitates hippo]

I could feel the boat getting bumped.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt
that if the hippo knocked the canoe over,

I didn't have anything left
in the tank, that I was done.

NARRATOR: Understanding the hippo's
continued pursuit of Paul's canoe

requires a closer
look at this specific animal.

I knew that stretch of river
probably as well as anyone did.

NARRATOR:
Until now, Paul's previous encounters

with this bull were just close calls.

PAUL: He was a very, very large,
rogue male.

About six months prior to that,
I had been giving a canoe safari,

and he had actually attacked
a boat I was in then.

And I'd come face to face with him.

In the months that followed,
there had been six more attacks,

each attack had got a little more intense,
a little more intentional.

A little more vicious.

With this hippo having these repeated
instances of attacks on canoes and boats,

you'd think that this hippo has actually
become comfortable with these types

of scenarios, where it actually knows
that it's winning these interactions,

and that becomes a dangerous
and potentially rogue hippopotamus, yeah.

NARRATOR: Paul's hippo attack
may not have been just a case

of the wrong place,
wrong hippo, and wrong time,

but possibly the wrong season as well.

CAMILLE: The Zambezi River,
it has deep pools perennially,

where these hippos can completely
submerge themselves.

In low flow seasons, it may be more easy

to identify hippo pods with their backs
exposed out of the water.

But in high flow, hippos can
fully submerge themselves,

and they can go completely unnoticed.

Even by extremely experienced guides
like Paul, Evans, and Mike.

Paul's attack likely took place
because nobody had any idea

that this hippo was actually there,
under water. It was completely submerged.

And unknowingly, Paul led his group
over the top of this hippo,

which led to this attack.

NARRATOR: Finally clear of the hippo,
Paul's network comes to the rescue.

PAUL: So my team put out a call
that we needed some help,

and guides from far and near
scrambled and managed to get

to Mac and the clients on the rock.

And it just so happened that
there was a medical air rescue team

with a former army shock trauma specialist

working with them on exercise
a few minutes away.

They came and were able
to stabilize me to the degree

that we could transfer me to hospital.

But because of all my head,
neck and spinal injuries,

extracting me by air wasn't an option.

The decision was made
that we were going to drive,

and the closest hospital
with a surgeon who could help me

was about six hours away.

And because of my head,
neck and spinal injuries,

they couldn't give me any pain K*llers.

They needed to keep me
awake and conscious.

The chap who was the paramedic
driving the ambulance was also

the guy who owned
the local pizza restaurant,

and I knew I was in real trouble
when he told me

he would give me a free pizza if I lived.

NARRATOR: Paul makes the long ride
to Bulawayo hospital,

arriving eight hours after the attack.

PAUL: They wheeled me
into the operating room.

I can remember lying there
and hearing all these people

talking about how amazing
it was I had survived.

"He's definitely going to lose
at least one or two limbs,"

and I could feel myself starting to panic.

And when the doc walks in, and
he introduced himself, Dr. Ben Grubert.

I said, "Hey Doc, I know you're
gonna do what you gotta do,

but what do you say you take
the minimalist approach, huh?"

'Cause his plan, given all my
injuries had been to take off

both my arms and the bottom
part of one of my legs.

But when he heard me talk that way,
and ask that, he decided, "Okay."

And he went with the way more
complicated, way more risky surgery,

but as a result of that conversation,
I woke up having lost just one limb.

So the angels were smiling that night.

NARRATOR: Severely injured
after surviving an attack from black bear,

John Chelminiak is rushed
to Seattle's Harbor View Medical Center.

The only level one
trauma center in the state.

I went into a emergency surgery,
I believe that surgery was 18 hours.

They're trying to stop the bleeding,
get me pieced back together.

They're just trying to keep me alive.

NARRATOR: As doctors work
to stabilize John's condition,

officers from Washington Fish
and Wildlife Department are dispatched

to locate the offending animal.

When they found her, she was within
a few hundred yards of the cabin.

Just totally out of character for any
black bear, from what I understand.

RAE: The fact that this black bear
stuck around and was so easy to find

once the authorities came, suggests
to me that this really was its home.

They had been away from this home
for several weeks,

which is long enough for a bear
to take up some type of residence.

The arrival of John
and his family that evening

into that bear's habitat,
possibly posed as a threat to the bear.

It may have gotten worried
that its food resources,

or whatever it was dependent on,
were no longer going to be available

unless it fought for them.

NARRATOR: Whenever there is
a bear attack on a person,

Washington Fish and Wildlife policy is to
track and euthanize the offending animal.

At that point, they did have
to euthanize the bear.

The game agents came over and visited.

They did say that she would probably
have not made it through the winter.

The bear was a bit emaciated,
she was very light,

she was at about 150 pounds
and should have been more than that.

I'm probably lucky that she was 150 pounds

because that gave me a chance
to be the winner.

RAE: Finding out that she was only


that something was off,
either with her body,

or the ecosystem, and there may
have been some level of desperation

that also drove this behavior.

It still remains a mystery at this point,

but something was very,
very atypical about this bear.

NARRATOR: Although doctors
were able to save his life,

the injuries to John's face,
head and neck were extensive.

It's my face that is just ripped apart,

and there is no way
you can hide a face, right?

I looked like hell.

NARRATOR: As John recovers in the hospital
from the from the black bear attack

that nearly k*lled him, his primary
concern is his daughter, Megan.

JOHN: For a good first week,
Lynn kept Megan away.

MEGAN: I remember my mom
warning me that my dad was

going to look very different
than when I last saw him.

I remember being extremely nervous.
But also really excited to see him.

And so I walked over to my dad
for probably 30 seconds.

And left and I went
to the bathroom and threw up

because I was just so
overwhelmed by everything

that was happening around me.

NARRATOR: 18 months
and multiple surgeries later,

John is fitted with a prosthetic eye
and recovers.

A detail from the official
investigation offers a clue

to why the bear made its home there.

A bird feeder.

JOHN: We all love to have
animals in our back yard.

Birds, even squirrels.

But when you put the feeders out,
you don't think of it as

something that will attract
an animal that goes wild.

There is a reason
they call it "wild life",

and when you're in their territory,

you're in their territory,
and you have to respect that.

NARRATOR: Part of this respect
is knowing how to behave.

With black bears there are
a few steps that can save your life.

Day in and day out,
people are out in black bear country.

Recreating and having
a safe and wonderful time.

But, it's important to
take the proper precautions.

What do you do if you find yourself face
to face with a black bear?

First of all, don't make eye contact.

Eye contact to a bear or any large
predator signals that you are prey.

Look above its head
or below down at its feet.

Also with a black bear
and a black bear in particular,

it is an okay practice to make yourself
look big, powerful and aggressive.

If you have a jacket on,
take it off and put it above your head

to make you look considerably taller.

Speak in a low and resonant voice.

Yell at it, bark at it,
just cause a big disturbance.

Make yourself look crazy and
aggressive and very, very threatening.

Almost all of the time, we'll see black
bears retreating as opposed to attacking.

And if you have bear spray,
which you should,

deploy your bear spray
as you're backing away slowly.

Don't run.

They are amazing, magical creatures,

but they're also to be feared
in a certain capacity.

JOHN: Very blessed.

I'm blessed that my family was
there to be able to help me,

and I get to experience
the rest of Megan's life

and all the things that are coming.
Family is the driving force.

It's amazing.

MEGAN: He was in pretty high spirits,
all things considered.

For Halloween that year,
he had to wear an eye patch.

And so he told every single kid that came
up to our door that he was a pirate.

He is definitely still a hero in my eyes.

NARRATOR: Back in Southern Africa,
Paul Templer knows he's fortunate.

It was miraculous
that I was still alive.

With that day, there were a
lot of just strange and crazy

things that were working in my favor.

For example, it bit through
both my shoulders at one point,

and both arms were barely still attached.

On the left arm, he had torn the artery,

but as he had torn the artery,
it had twisted, arteries are elastic.

And as it sucked back in,
it had sealed itself.

If he hadn't done that,
I would have died on the spot.

In the back of my head,
there was a bite, if it had gone

just a teeny, teeny, teeny bit deeper,

it would have been done,
it would have severed my spine.

Scorecard on hippo attack, 38 major bites,
and five surgeries later, I'm still here.

The fact that Paul survived
an attack of that magnitude

is partially because he's just--
he's a very stubborn person.

He should have died.

The damage that was done to him,
he should have died.

And just stubborn.

And he decided not to.
And held on.

PAUL: So, before my run
in with that hippopotamus,

I'd often dreamed of canoeing the Zambezi
River from its source to the sea.

So, my prosthetist built me
a kayak paddle that I could

paddle with one arm,
and we put a team together.

We did the fullest descent
at the time, took us about three months

to paddle just shy of 1,600 miles.

Only reason we didn't complete it was
'cause some rather nasty w*r lords

forced us to skip a stretch
of river in Angola.

But in Africa at the time,
there were a lot of kids

stepping on land mines,
and with all the publicity

I had received, and the attention
my story had been given,

we used that as the publicity stunt
to launch a non-profit

that would help those kids get limbs.

It's this peaceful co-existence
that in an ideal world happens.

The animals let me bring
clients in on safari to show

them the splendor and the majesty
of the great outdoors.

And our part of the bargain is
we do what we can to preserve

their environment, to take care of them.

Human populations in Africa
are growing every year.

and therefore, we're seeing
more and more impacts by

people in these natural places in Africa.

In the next few years, hippos
are vulnerable to extinction.

They're a large mammal, so they have
very high energy requirements

and require a very intact,
natural ecosystem.

There's changes in flow patterns,
we're damming rivers,

reducing flows in rivers,
and then also infringing on hippo habitat

by building homes in their ecosystem.

Hippos are instinctively
defensive in their nature,

and potentially the aggression
that we're seeing against people

is actually people moving
into hippo habitat,

and it's not hippos changing,
it's actually people

changing the habitat used by hippos.

We need to give each other the space,
we need to give each other the respect,

we need to take care of the environment.

We need to figure out
a way to co-habitate.

It doesn't guarantee that things

are always gonna work out
the way that we want to,

but it sure does give us
a better shot at it.