01x04 - If She Smells, I'm Alive...

[bunniefuu]

[rushing water]

TODD: I've been in
the woods my entire life.

I'm always thinking
about what's around the corner.

I've had people ask me,
"Did you think you were going to die?"

Well, yeah, I thought I was going to die.

[theme music playing]

NARRATOR: Beaverhead National Forest,

over three million acres of serene
natural beauty in South Western Montana.

For years, Forest Service Engineer,

Todd Orr has been exploring these
mountains for both work and for pleasure.

TODD: My name is Todd Orr,
and I'm from Ennis, Montana,

and I live here in Bozeman.

I feel I am a true Montanan,
I grew up living the Montana life.

I lived in the country.

I was fishing and hunting, hiking,
camping every weekend

with my parents and my brother
and just exploring.

You know, we'd wake up
in the morning in the summer,

and I'm heading up the mountain
just trying to find a cave

to crawl into or a cliff to climb.

Just being outside was my life,
daylight to dark.

I work for the Forest Service
as a Trails Engineer,

and there's a number
of mountain ranges up there

that I've just spent my life in,

and I know every little crook and
cranny and canyon and waterhole.

I'm usually up there
at eight or 9,000 feet,

and I'm working on trail systems,
and just a beautiful place to be

and lots of animals and wildflowers,
and you're at the top of the world.

NARRATOR:
Getting a jump on hunting season,

Todd heads out in the pre-dawn hours,
scouting for elk.

So it was October 1st, 2016,
and I was on the North Fork of Bear Creek

in the Madison Valley near Ennis, Montana.

I want to get out into the woods
and get up as high as possible

on top of the mountain
to get to the trail head,

and then hiking up in the dark to get
to where I think the elk are going to be

at 9,000 feet by daylight.

And I have a headlamp on, but it only
illuminates 30 feet in front of me,

but you're just kind of
paying attention and listening.

In the mountains here in Montana,
you have black bear,

grizzly bear, mountain lions,
I've got my backpack,

I've got bear spray just in case,
I carry a p*stol,

a few bandages,
and just anything that I would need

in case of an emergency situation.

I'm always making noise
as I'm hiking up the trail.

- Hey, bear.
- Saying, "Hey, bear," or "Hey, Boo-Boo,"

- "Hey, Yogi Bear," something like that.
- Hey, Boo-Boo.

If you're about making noise,
talking to yourself,

something that alerts
an animal to your presence,

they're usually, 99% of the time,
going to go in the other direction,

or let you pass, and you may not
even know that animal is there.

NARRATOR: Large carnivore ecologist,
Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant,

is familiar with the variety of
animals inhabiting these woods.

RAE: Some of America's biggest animals
are the quietest animals.

Wolves, mountain lions, grizzly bears,
black bears, the list goes on.

We don't always know exactly
what these animals are thinking.

Although they have certainly heard Todd's
calls and know that he's present,

they might not
necessarily accept his presence

on the landscape and
instead of dashing away,

they can see it as a threat.

TODD: Hey, bear, hey, Boo-Boo.

So I'm hiking up the trail
for about three or four miles

in the dark, and right at daylight,
I step out into this opening,

the sun's not coming up yet,
but it's just starting to get light,

and I see a sow grizzly bear,
and two cubs, maybe 70, 80 yards out

across the meadow in front of me.

This was a mature female grizzly,

so probably 400 pounds,
which is a large bear for this area.

I see them,
and she sees me at the same time,

and she immediately turns
and just runs right,

straight up over the ridge
with her cubs and disappears.

So I'm thinking,
"Okay, this is a good bear,

she doesn't like people, she's gone.

I can just wait a minute,
and I'll head in the opposite direction

and head up the trail,
and I'll never see her again

and it was really not a big deal,
I wasn't concerned at all.

So I kind of waited and, like,

"Okay, if she's gone," I took a few steps,
and I heard a noise,

and I remember turning
and looking over my left shoulder,

and that bear had circled
around the mountain

and had come
in behind me to get my wind.

She was coming at a full charge,
straight down the ridge,



[growls]

Her ears are laid back,
the brush is flying in front of her,

and the grass getting mowed down,
and she's just coming wide open at me.

[growling]

NARRATOR: The grizzly bear,
an enormous top predator found in

the Northwestern
United States and Canada.

Reaching over
nine feet tall on its hind legs

and capable of taking down large mammals,
like moose, elk and bison.

RAE: In terms of weight,
they are the largest land mammal

that we have in the lower 48 states.
They are huge.

They can be, you know, between 800
and 1,000 pounds at their heaviest;

which is truly, truly enormous
and so much of that is muscle

and just brute strength.

Grizzly bears are typically diurnal,
which means they are active in the day,

and they sleep at night,
but their activity does often start

in those early morning hours
when night is turning into day.

[growling]

TODD:
I see her charging down off the hill,

and my first thought is it's a bluff
charge 'cause most bears don't attack.

Most bears, they're trying to protect
themselves or their young

or their food source, and they're going
to bluff charge to try to scare you away.

[growling]

RAE: The grizzly bear might just
do a bluff charge to see

if that will work enough to get
the perpetrator out of the area.

Whether it's a full charge,
whether it's a bluff charge,

whether it's a swipe,

whether it's a growl,
or even sometimes, a barking sound;

they are signaling, "Get out of here
before I really hurt you."

TODD: And so my first thought was,
"It's a bluff charge, but just in case,"

and I just automatically
kind of went for my bear spray

and pulled the bear spray,
pulled the safety clip out

and looked back up,
and she was already at 30 feet,

she had covered that distance just that
quick, and she's still coming wide open.

[growling]

And there was no time to even think,
I just looked back up

and just pulled the trigger on her
and gave her a full blast

of bear spray, and just her momentum
at that speed just carried her

right through the bear spray,
and all of a sudden, there she was,

and I just turned my back
and went down on my face

to protect the back of my neck
and my vitals,

and she immediately was on top of me.

[screams]

Although the bear spray
probably made an impact

to this bear by getting
into her respiratory system,

it definitely wasn't
enough to slow her down

or deter her from her mission to
be aggressive and get him out of there.

TODD: I remember the first bite,
the pain was excruciating as, you know,

they have one and
a half inch canine teeth,

and it just buries into my arm
into the muscle.

You can actually hear the muscle, like...
[makes crushing noise]

Crushing from the bite,
and that first bite was so painful.

[grunting]

RAE: Grizzly bears are powerful,
their paws,

including claws, can be
as large as a dinner plate,

so they're able to take
these swipes very easily.

Their teeth have these long fangs,

I mean, just huge,
huge powerful jaws and teeth

that can crush bone with a single bite.

Grizzly bears are very, very serious,
very dangerous animals,

and although it's not a good idea
for us to completely fear them,

it's essential for us
to respect their power.

TODD: At that point,
your adrenaline kicks in

and that will to survive and your--
I just kind of blocked out

the rest of the pain,
and I remember she bit me

five or six times in my right arm
and shoulder

and then she started coughing
from the bear spray,

and just that quick she was gone,
it was over.

So I stood up,
and I've got some puncture wounds,

in my arm, and I'm kind
of looking around, like, "Is she gone?"

The adrenaline is still surging
through my body, and I'm thinking,

"Wow, I was lucky to
survive a grizzly attack,"

and I'm looking, like,
"Okay, nothing is too major here."

So I kind of looked around and
made sure that that bear was gone,

and I'm like, "Okay, I feel safe now,

I'm going to head out,
hike down out of here about

three or four miles to the truck."

So I picked up my stuff,
started hiking down the trail,

and I probably made it three or 400 yards,

a few minutes down the trail,
and there's a creek crossing there,

and I had to walk through the creek,
and I was just about to the water’s edge,

and the stream's pretty noisy,
and all of a sudden,

I thought I heard something behind me,
and I turned, and--

just to look over my shoulder,
and the bear had come back a second time,

and she was probably ten feet behind me
at that moment at a full charge.

SOPHIA: I love surfing so much,
I just enjoy being out on the water.

Not thinking about anything
below me or around me,

but the more time you spend
in the water, the higher risk you have.

NARRATOR: Santa Monica, California,

one of the most popular
beach destinations in the world

where a small metropolitan city butts up
against the vast wild Pacific Ocean.

Tourists and locals alike recreate along
its shores year round.

People like college student Sophia Raab,

who's out on her surfboard
every chance she gets.

It was my first semester in college,
just a couple of months in.

I was pretty hooked
on surfing at the time,

all day long, I was thinking about
the waves when I was in class,

I was checking the surf reports,

and I always had my surfboard
in my car ready to go.

That day, I believe it was a Wednesday.

Sophia texted me and told me
that she was going out surfing.

I happened to be at a friend's house
that had a surfboard,

so I asked him if I could borrow
it and texted her and was like,

"Yeah, I'll meet you out there."

SOPHIA: I was really excited
because it was the first time

that I was going to get to surf
with one of my new, close girlfriends,

and my mom gives me a call,

warns me of all the dangers,
she doesn't enjoy the fact

that I love surfing so much
and sees it as a big risk,

and never failed to warn me
about the, you know,

wild animals that are in the water
and whatnot, but that doesn't faze me.

NARRATOR: Sophia and Jessica
rendezvous at Sunset Point,

a narrow rock strewn beach
popular with local surfers.

JESSICA: Sophia is super excited,
I pull my phone out,

we're taking some Snapchat videos,
scanning the beach, dancing around,

holding our boards, super
excited to get out and go surf.

SOPHIA:
We come down the rocks a little bit,

and then once we get about halfway,
we put on our leashes,

and then we both paddled out.

JESSICA: This particular day
wasn't a super crazy day

with the waves, the water was a little
murky, you definitely couldn't, like,

see past your knees
when you were sitting on your board

looking into the water.

And so we're hanging out, laughing,
kind of paddling.

I'm not catching a ton,
but I'm able to paddle into some stuff

- and it feels really awesome.
- It just feels so good.

I'm able to get wave,
after wave, after wave.

And it's so much fun.

It was probably the best day out
at that break I've ever had.

JESSICA: We were out there
for probably about an hour,

and at this point,
we're getting kind of hungry.

And I tell Jessica, "Hey, I think
I'm going to catch the last one in,"

and I feel like I had a inkling that

that was a weird thing to say
because you're not supposed to say,

"I'm catching the last wave in,"
'cause it may be your last wave ever.

But see a nice wave coming in,
and it's super glassy and smooth

and it's just like the perfect height,
and I paddle in, and I hop in on it,

and it was the best wave
that I had caught all day.

I'm probably like 20, 25 yards
from the cliff where I'm about

- to get out of the water and then...
- [thud]

It felt like I came in contact
with something,

and I do remember that, like, jolt.

Instantly was thrown off my board,
and as I hit the water,

I kind of just thought I was dying.

[birds chirping]

NARRATOR: Deep in the Montana wilderness
and battered from a grizzly bear attack,

Trail Engineer, Todd Orr sees the 400
pound mama bear charging once again.

I had bear spray in my hand, actually,
and my p*stol right here

and I didn't even have time to use it,

it was just corner of my eye,
see the bear, boom,

she knocks me right down
into the dirt onto my face,

and she's on top of my back,
and she is mad this time.

Angry grizzly bear, maybe 400 pounds
minimum, barreling at Todd

at 20, 30, 35 miles an hour,

that impact to his body would be
like a vehicle hitting him on the road,

maybe even at highway speeds.
It would be so destructive.

TODD: I was kind of crunched down
with my arms behind the back of my neck,

protecting my neck and my vitals,
and her first bite was in my left arm,

and it just crunched all the way
into the bone,

and I heard the crunch of
the bone and felt that pain,

and I just kind of winced
from the pain and went... [grunts]

and I pulled my arm away, and that motion
and sound just kind of triggered, like,

a frenzy, and she just went wild
at that point, and she was biting me

in the shoulders, in the back,

she'd pick me up, and she'd
shake me back and forth

and toss me and throw me 20 feet
to the side. I was just a rag doll.

NARRATOR: A second bear attack
is incredibly rare

and calls for an explanation.

[growling]

Creeks and water sources
are super important for bears,

they need water, they need food,
they need all of these things.

So it could be the fact that Todd
hasn't yet gotten past this creek

is signaling to the bear
that he is still within her territory,

that she wants to protect.

Maybe before, she was sending a signal,
but this time she is angry.

My perception is that
she's angry that he's still there.

She's angry that he hasn't vanished
from the landscape.

She's angry that she's still having
to defend herself,

and instead of giving
that warning message,

she is feeling that she needs to eliminate
the intruder altogether.

This is a very scary situation
because given the behavior,

and the severity of this attack,
it appears as if

this grizzly bear is willing to k*ll.

She would throw me into the dirt,
and I would immediately go face down,

and she would just jump
right on top of me again.

Just that quick, she's on my back again,
and she'd pick me up and shake me again.

At one point, she had reached around
and grabbed me in the side,

and I remember just
out of the corner of my eye,

kind of under my arm, we saw each other.

I had that glimpse
into her eye from, like,

eight inches away, knowing that right
there she could just rip my face off.

Her three inch claws
and the teeth that they have,

they could turn you
into just shredded meat.

They can, they can rip you to pieces
and k*ll you instantly if necessary.

[growling]

NARRATOR: Back in Santa Monica,
surfer Sophia Raab is caught

underneath the white water
after being struck by something.

She struggles to get her bearings.

It feels like I'm looking
at an interstellar screen saver

as basically, like,
- this 3
- D realm that I'm entering,

and everything around me is, like,
it looks like outer space,

it's navy blue and dark purple
and little stars everywhere and--

I don't know, it was definitely one of
those white light moments that I hear,

you know, people have when
they do have near death experiences

and then at that moment,
I hear this voice,

it sounds a lot like me
but it feels like it's God,

and it's like,
"Sophia, I think this is it,"

and I thought to myself, like,
"No, this is not it,"

and so I kind of snapped to,
and I'm standing in the water

and my first realization
is that my board is just, like,

floating off over there, which is very odd
because I have my strap on,

and it's, like, second nature for me
to pop off my board

and grab it immediately,
and I'm standing about waist deep

in water, and the waves rush back,
and I look down,

and my whole leg is just
like peeled open,

and my insides are falling out,
and I just started screaming.

[screaming]

JESSICA: It was just a blood curdling
scream, and my first thought, I think,

"There's a jellyfish,
there's something stuck on her leg

that's either stinging her,
causing her some pain."

NARRATOR: Dr. Camila Cáceres
is a local marine biologist

who's familiar with what lurks
in the waters of Santa Monica Bay.

There is a wide variety of animals
in the Santa Monica Bay, um,

there are a lot of invertebrates,

so you can see jellyfish,
sea urchins, sea stars,

you can have many fish, bass, groupers,

and quite a few species
of stingray and sharks as well.

NARRATOR: Whatever struck Sophia,
it doesn't seem like a jellyfish.

SOPHIA: I look down,
I have a massive gash in my leg,

and my insides,
all of my fat and my material

is falling out, kind of just hanging
off of this one piece,

and it's so gory that
that's how I know how serious it is.

JESSICA: This point, Sophia and
I are the only two in the water

and I'm looking closer, meanwhile,
thinking I still have to get in.

You know, there's all these thoughts
going through, everything kind of stops.

NARRATOR: While Jessica struggles
to reach her friend,

Sophia searches the shoreline
desperate for help.

I see a couple of people
standing up on PCH.

I'm screaming, like,
"Somebody help me, please,"

but they kind of just pulled
out their phones and started,

I don't know,
maybe filming me or something,

I'm not quite sure, and at that point,

I realized that no one's going to be able
to help me, and I have to save myself.

[growling]

NARRATOR: Trapped underneath a 400 pound
grizzly bear in the mountains of Montana,

Todd Orr is no match
for this massive animal.

[grunts]

I knew what I had to do,
I'd had bear awareness and safety classes.

With, you know, some animals,
you have to fight back

but with, like, a grizzly bear,

there's nothing you can do
about fighting back.

I have to play dead,
or she's going to k*ll me.

RAE: It's extremely important to play
dead when it comes to a grizzly bear

that is this angry, but playing dead
is easier said than done.

It really means not
reacting to any of these bites.

Grizzly bears don't eat people,
they do not hunt humans,

so if a human is playing dead, then it
means the threat is over to the grizzly,

they're never going to try
to then consume the person.

That is why it is the best protection
mechanism that Todd has at this moment.

TODD: The voice in my head is telling me
how to survive, I can hear it right now.

It's like, "Don't move, don't move."
It's almost like I was talking to myself,

telling myself this is what you have
to do, and it's part of my brain

forcing my body to ignore
and block out everything else,

it's like the human body can withstand
things that we can't imagine,

and in your brain, can get
you through that as well,

and it's just a matter
of thinking about it, uh,

calming yourself down
and focusing on that.

It was just over and over,
"Don't move, you can get through this,

you can survive, this is not the end."

RAE: It is interesting
and important to bring up

the word "instinct" when evaluating
this situation because Todd is operating

from certain instincts, and it's possible
and probable that the bear is also.

We don't know if she's
interacted with people before,

we don't if she's seen people
be harmful to grizzly bears before,

we don't know if she has
experienced an attack to herself

or maybe even previous cubs
that she has reared before.

It is possible that she is reacting
so aggressively because of instincts

that she's never had to use in the past,

or it's possible that she's operating so
aggressively because of an experience,

a highly negative experience
that she has been through.

TODD: She would stand there,
sniff the back of my neck,

and then bite me in the shoulder,
sniffed my neck again,

bite me on the arm and just kind of
over and over and just testing me,

and after maybe 30 seconds
of that, she just stepped off

and disappeared,
and I'm still hunkered down in that ball

and I'm, like, listening.

It's like, "Is she gone?"
I don't know if she's ten feet away

just watching me and it's like, if I move,
she's going to be right back on me again.

So I just held that position
for probably 30 seconds,

and then all of a sudden,
I got to thinking, it's, like,

"Okay, I think she's gone," and
so she's probably checking on her cubs,

she had probably sent them up a tree
for safety and

if I'm still here, and she comes back
to see if I'm still in the area,

she's gonna attack me a third time.

NARRATOR: Trapped in the white water
with a gaping wound in her left thigh,

Sophia Raab is in shock,
her friend Jess is trying to reach her.

I didn't see anyone
in my immediate surroundings,

I feel like no-one could hear me almost.

That's kind of that moment
that the adrenaline kicks in.

And so I put, you know,
everything back together as much I can,

and just kind of, like, hold it.

And I just stay on the board and I paddle,

I paddle, and I keep my feet as tight
on the board as I can,

and I just try to keep myself up

without letting any appendages
down into the water

because I don't know what's in there,
I have no idea what just did this.

NARRATOR: In Santa Monica Bay,
few know better what shares

the water with surfers than Carlos Guana,
a photographer and drone pilot

who helps local scientists
observe sea life in this area.

He's captured one
particular predator many times

while filming above the surf.

Well, here in Southern California,

we know there are juvenile
white sharks in abundance,

and what I am seeing is
that the white sharks

are around us more often than we think,
and so as the juvenile white sharks

share the water with these swimmers,
these surfers,

I'm observing a lot of interactions.

So given how long
sharks have been around,

and how many species there are, and the
fact that there's also a lot of humans,

it's very common for us
to find ourselves in the ocean

near a shark, and here in
Santa Monica specifically,

it is considered
a juvenile Great White shark area.

NARRATOR: The Great White shark
one of the ocean's top predators,

growing over 20 feet long
and over 5,000 pounds at their largest.

Though adults are
primarily deep sea hunters,

ten foot long juveniles are
found swimming closer to shore.

Usually juvenile sharks do tend
to inhabit shallower areas,

so a lot of nurseries are very shallow.
They're hanging out looking for food,

so smaller prey like octopus, crab,
just trying to stay safe

away from the larger Great White sharks

because bigger Great White sharks
can eat smaller Great Whites.

So if you're a juvenile
small Great White shark,

you're more worried about not
getting eaten than finding your food.

It's very common for all juvenile sharks

that they tend to be
a little more skittish, nervous,

they swim fast, sometimes they
can be a little more aggressive,

so show more of those aggressive
signs when they're swimmin'.

You know, more larger sharks
they tend to be very calm,

they swim very steady.

What I have actually seen with surfers
is they don't see the sharks.

When you're at surface level,

you're basically blind
to what's underneath you,

and I've got hours of footage
of sharks near surfers.

You'll get a surfer
looking at a wave saying,

"I'm going to catch this,
I'm going to catch this wave,"

and then there's a shark
right in that wave,

and they both essentially catch the wave.

SOPHIA: By the time I get to the rocks,
I don't really have much more strength,

I'm basically just getting beat up
against these rocks now.

JESSICA: By the time some man
down the beach heard her screams,

he runs over, and
he's helping get Sophia out.

SOPHIA: Surf Jesus shows up,
literal Surf Jesus,

and he has long gray hair,
and he comes and grabs me by my arms,

He's, like, "Oh, best wave of the day,”
like, “Wow! Never seen one like that,”

and I'm just thinking,
"Dude, now's not the time." Like...

He was just talking to me
about where do I usually surf,

or what's my day been like, and just
anything to get my mind off of it, really.

And it did work,
I mean, I can't thank this man enough.

I just want to get out and get to Sophia

and make sure she's okay
and that we get her help.

NARRATOR: Jessica finally makes it
out of the water to her friend.

I've never seen anything like this
before in my life.

I mean, I've seen some, like,
horror movies, but seeing this,

in person, I realize it's not a jellyfish.
This is the inside of Sophia's leg,

hanging down so far
with insides hanging out.

So, you know, at that point,
I ran kind of behind a rock

that was up on the beach,
and I vomited, I puked.

SOPHIA: I didn't really
question what had happened,

I mean, it didn't make sense to me.

I spent so much time surfing in the water,

and I mean, I've wiped out
dozens of times, and like,

I'd never even come close
to something like this happening.

JESSICA: At this time,
we're not questioning what did it,

we just want to get her
help because she's not okay.

NARRATOR: Deep in the Montana woods,

Todd Orr survives a second grizzly attack
and can only hope the bear retreats.

TODD: I thought I've gotta
get out of here,

I doubt I'm going
to survive a third attack.

Still hunkered in this position, my eyes
are full of blood and extremely slow

I reach my hand up and
wipe the blood from my eye

and look that way,
and I wipe the blood from this eye

and look to the left,
and there was no bear.

And I saw my p*stol laying over there,
she had ripped that off my body.

So I just dove for the p*stol,
pulled it out of the holster,

hammer back, looking around just in case.

She was gone, she'd gone back
over to the ridge to her cubs,

and so I'm like,
"Okay, I've got to get out of here,

now's my chance to remove
myself from this situation."

This arm was worthless,
it was broke and kind of all hunked

over from the muscle and tendon damage,
and I just headed on down the mountain,

down the trail.

NARRATOR: Todd begins the three mile
trek back to the trail head

where his truck is parked.

TODD: I knew that I shouldn't run
because I wasn't sure

at that moment what my wounds were,
so I didn't want to get my heart rate

going any faster and,
and cause more bleeding.

Plus, if the bear was up on the hill,
watching me or something,

and the last thing you want to do is run
'cause that triggers the predator,

prey response.

You can move fast, but you'll never
be faster than a grizzly bear.

So turning and
running also sends a signal,

"I am prey," that's what a deer would do,

an antelope, a gazelle,
any kind of animal that is prey

to a carnivore will try to run;

the best thing to do is not incite a chase

because that does send the wrong
signal that you may be prey.

TODD: And so I was just
walking fast down the trail

and just wanted to get as far away
as I could from that situation

and as the adrenaline's wearing off,
the pain is coming on significantly.

- [moans]
- I stopped probably halfway down,

I'm like, "I need to stop, you know,
and assess my wounds

and just make sure that I'm not
going to bleed to death before

before I get to the truck."

She probably bit me 25, 30 times
on my right arm and shoulder.

I've already got a broken arm
and tendons sticking out

and muscle damage and puncture wounds
and bit me once on the side

and then there was a-- one of her claws
caught the side of my scalp,

and I had a five inch gash
right to the bone on my scalp,

and my scalp was hanging over.

My whole arm was kind of crunched over
from the nerve damage,

and it's just throbbing
like it's in a vice, but I'm like,

"Okay, I'm not going to bleed out,

I'm not going to go into shock,
so I just need to keep going,"

and that was my focus was,

get to the truck,
and then I'll be 100% safe.

At that point, every step farther
down the trail, closer to the truck

was, like, I'm getting that much closer
to getting out of this situation,

and all of a sudden, it occurred to me

that this is right at daylight
where the most animals are active,

and there's lots of bears in this area,

and there's a possibility I could run
into another bear on the hike out.

So all of a sudden I was thinking,
"Oh, jeez,

I don't know what's in
front of me the next two miles,"

and so I'm still talking
and paying attention and

I've got bear spray in one hand
and a p*stol tucked under here,

and I'm dripping blood all over, going,

"I just don't want to
go through this again."

If I run into another bear,
this is going to be insane,

and I'm just hoping that this was it,
and I can make it to that truck.

NARRATOR: Back on the beach
in Southern California,

first responders arrive on the scene
to treat the mysterious gash

that split Sophia Raab's
left thigh wide open.

I think when 911 showed up is
when the lifeguards were coming down

and from their perspective,
they didn't see anything.

It felt like everything was just
happening in slow motion,

and I'm just sitting here
with my leg gashed open, like,

covered and filled with sand.

She's crying because she's scared.
We're all scared, rightfully so, you know,

she's asking questions, like,
"Am I going to lose my leg?"

SOPHIA: Up until that point,
I honestly thought that

I was either going to die, and/or my life
would be significantly altered,

and just not the same,
and I was really nervous about that.

NARRATOR: Paramedics load
Sophia into an ambulance,

meanwhile Jessica documents
the unfolding situation.

JESSICA [over phone]: You guys,
Sophia's leg just got torn open.

Home girl got a laceration that's,
like, this long, to her bone.

I'm going to the hospital to see her.

SOPHIA: Once I finally made it
to the hospital,

in terms of pain I was higher than a ten,
it was the worse pain I had ever been in.

SOPHIA [over phone]:
Currently have a gash in my leg

about four and a half inches deep and
six inches long and four inches wide.

The nurses came in, and I just
remember them saying, like,

"You are one of the
luckiest people we've ever seen

because we could see
your femoral artery, like, visibly,

and if this had happened
even just a centimeter over,

you would have bled out in a second."

NARRATOR: Sophia undergoes
emergency surgery to close up

the laceration, but how it got there
is still unknown.

Emergency Room Physicians
assumed she hit a rock,

or the fin of her surfboard
could be the cause.

JESSICA: The skeg of her surfboard,

one of the fins, had been broken off,
so we're like,

"Okay, well, she lost a piece
of the board,

this just must have been what did it.

The fin that broke somehow
cut her, but it's awfully deep,

and when you look at the fin,
it just doesn't, it doesn't make sense.

NARRATOR:
But the more scenarios they consider,

the greater the mystery grows.

JESSICA [over phone]:
Her laceration, it's ten by ten,

ten by ten, and that's not even the depth.

But we weren't thinking
about the mystery of what did it,

as much as, like, how do we heal her,
how does she walk again.

TODD: By the time I got to the vehicle,
it was just like... [sighs]

"Okay, I'm not going to have any
more encounters, the bears are behind me,"

and I just-- it was a relief,
it was just, like...

"I am safe, I survived this."

I'm going to have surgery, I'm going
to go to the hospital, but I'm alive.

Surviving a grizzly bear attack twice,
this is an amazing thing.

The odds are very low of surviving
a double grizzly bear attack.

Again they're good at k*lling,

they are made to be as aggressive
as they deem necessary,

and the fact that he was able
to survive this, not once but twice,

is so incredible.

TODD: And I got to thinking
that I need to warn people of

this aggressive sow grizzly
with cubs up this trail.

It's Saturday morning,
there could be a bow hunter or a hiker

come up here and decide to hike
this morning, and so I thought,

"Well, I'll write a note and stick it on
the bulletin board at the trail head."

You know, get out a little
sticky note and a pen,

and I'm trying to write something,
and the blood is dripping off

my fingers, and so it's like,
it just wasn't legible at all.

I'm like,
"Okay, that's not going to work."

So I took a couple of photos of my arm
and myself,

and then I thought,
"Well, I'll just do a quick selfie video

to just share with my friends.

TODD [over phone]:
Yeah, life sucks in bear country.

She got my head good,
I don't know what's under my hat,

my ear, my arm.

Uh, pieces of stuff hanging out,
I don't know what's going on in there,

and then my shoulder, it's ripped up.
I think my arm's broke, but legs are good.

internal organs are good,
eyes are good.

I just walked out three miles,
and I need to go to the hospital.

TODD: I pulled into the emergency
entrance at the hospital,

and there was a doctor and a nurse and
a sheriff's officer standing out there,

and I couldn't get my truck into park,

all the puncture wounds
in my arm were just,

everything was all stiff,
I just couldn't even lift my arm,

and the sheriff's officer came over.
So he's helping me get out, and he's like,

"I'm surprised you took the time
to put a seatbelt on,"

and I was like, "Well,
I just survived two bear attacks

I don't want to die in a car wreck,"
and I walked into the entrance,

into the hospital and everybody
in the hospital had heard about

"Here comes a grizzly attack survivor,"
and so everybody,

all the nurses and all the staff
were all lined up kind of in the hallway,

it was like, I'm walking down through--
I'm being paraded into the hospital.

And everybody's looking
to see how bad I looked.

So I'm sitting there, and they're asking
questions, and I'm just smiling.

I think in some of my photos,
the picture of the side of my head

with my scalp all hanging over,
and you can see I'm smiling in the photo.

I'm just, I'm just happy
to have survived this.

NARRATOR: At Santa Monica Hospital,

surfer Sophia Raab wakes from
an emergency surgery repairing

the mysterious wound inflicted
on her earlier that day.

[overlapping chatter]

Just got done.

After that they immediately just kind of
stuck me in a wheelchair and, like,

gave me my prescriptions.

WOMAN [over phone]: Jessica.

SOPHIA [over phone]:
Finally on my way out.

We never really got a diagnosis
from a doctor or a nurse

or anyone in the emergency room
that day of what muscles were torn,

what the recovery time was like.
We were kind of in the dark in what to do.

Jessica just, like,
googled the top orthopedic doctors

in the area, and Dr. Mandelbaum was
the first name, and I saw him that Friday.

I'm Dr. Bert Mandelbaum,
my day job is an orthopedic surgeon,

taking care of knees in athletes.
I actually was a Marine Biology Major.

I go to his office, and I come in,

and there's just all these photos
of him diving with sharks,

and he's, like, got a shark tie on.

NARRATOR: As the physician responsible
for Sophia's post-injury care,

Dr. Mandelbau wants to understand
what caused the initial wound.

He has us actually stand up
and re-enact exactly

how she was standing on the board,
what way she fell off into the water.

I kind of seconded the story
of where I saw the board go,

that it didn't cross over her,
it stayed on the left side

'cause her feet pushed it off.

BERT: She couldn't tell me
the surfboard was near her

when she was injured, she couldn't tell me
that she fell onto a rock,

and when I saw the shape of the wound,

I began to think that
this may be caused by a small shark.

Here off the coast,
we have lots of small sharks,

we have mako sharks,
juvenile white sharks.

It could be even some blue sharks.

I've seen all those, uh,
swim right around the tidal zone,

right around the waves.

He automatically without much question
or mystery

seems to think that this was a shark bite,

and this is the first time that Sophia
and I are hearing this information.

And my sense was from probing
and asking Sophia about this,

she was probably hit by accident
by one of the small sharks

who would basically hunt
right in that tidal zone.

He assumes that either I fell off the wave

and then startled the shark,
or I kind of surfed, like,

into it, and then fell off my board,
and then in that moment,

it could have come in and bit me.

NARRATOR: Video evidence
shows sharks close enough

for human contact, but what exactly
happened to Sophia is unclear.

SOPHIA: We were trying to
figure out how my board could

have been, like, shaped, like,
against me for it to hit and bite

the fin as well as my leg.

And there's this one part
that's about the size of the part

of the fin that had been snapped off,
and so it is likely that

that part of the fin was kind of
protecting this part of my leg.

BERT: The shark's teeth
are extremely sharp.

Just the contact of
the upper jaw in that area could

create the wound like that, and for me,
I've reviewed a lot of shark wounds,

I've seen a few in my career,
and when you look at the atlas

of shark wounds,
and there are many of these,

this to me looks like
a juvenile shark bite.

It's one of those things, where it's like,

you have more of a chance of
getting struck by lightning.

[lightning crackles]

It is very likely that there were
sharks in the area around that time.

We're just thinking, like, this is insane,
what are the chances of this?

NARRATOR: Sophia Raab was surfing in
shark infested Southern California waters,

she suffered a mysterious wound.

Does it necessarily follow that she
was attacked by a Great White?

I would say very unlikely.

A surfer on a surfboard,
that outline on the surface can look

like a seal or a sea lion,
but those are items that sharks eat

as adults, not as juveniles.

There is the theory that maybe the shark
kind of nicked her in the knee

and also nicked the surfboard, but in
order for a shark to be able to do both,

they have to be a very
large powerful shark and

and it's very unlikely that they would
have been able to do that as a juvenile.

NARRATOR: Dr. Cáceres has
her own theory of the culprit,

which is no more comforting.

If I had to choose a fish
or an animal that I think

might have caused this,
I would have to say a barracuda.

Barracuda can be quite tenacious,

they can swim very fast, and
it's very hard to spot them from

the beach or from the surfboard.

If you see a shark,
you know it's coming at you,

but barracudas can swim so fast,
short distances, that it might be


next second, they're in your face.

I would see a barracuda and
be much more scared than a shark.

Barracudas are definitely aggressive,

they are not as large as sharks
but they're definitely predators,

and they definitely have some teeth
that can cause some damage.

NARRATOR: For Sophia Raab,
it's very likely she'll never know

what tore open her leg
in the surf that day.

Yeah, it does remain a mystery,
but what doesn't remain

a mystery is the experience
that taught me that I'm not invincible,

but there was never a question
that I would get back in the water,

it was going to happen,
it was just a matter of when.

The stitches I had
in for 12 weeks and, um...

I just remember the moment
that I decided, like, screw it,

there's a few more weeks left
that I have to wait,

but I'm just going to, like,
jump in the water really quick.

It was really beautiful,
and it made me realize

that I don't have anything
to fear in the water,

it's not that there's all these
menacing creatures out there,

they're all just, you know,
co-existing and living, like,

really beautiful, colorful lives,
and I'm just here visiting

and getting to be a part of it,

and that moment it just completely
solidified my love for the ocean

and my appreciation of it.

NARRATOR:
After multiple surgeries to repair

his forearms, back, shoulder and scalp,

Todd spent six weeks in a brace

and another three months
in physical therapy,

but eventually fully recovers.

Soon as I got the brace off,
I was ready to go back in the woods,

I had four days left of hunting season,
and I just wanted to get back out there,

and I knew that I had to go back to this,
to this spot where I was attacked.

I knew that would help get me through it,
so I had a friend of mine go with me,

and we hiked back in right to
where I had the attack,

and I stood there and told him the story,

and we kind of looked around and said,
"This is where the bear was,"

and that was my first day
back in the woods after my attack,

and I just knew that my life
is in the woods,

and I'd have to go back
for recreating and for work,

and so I knew that just attacking it
straight on was the best way

to go to get through that,
and I think every day after that

it got a little bit easier.

Every day that I didn't get attacked,
it felt a little bit better,

and four years now, five years,
I'm still anxious,

it's different than it used to be,
I don't like hiking in the dark anymore,

I'd rather wait until I can see
something coming at daylight,

but I'm still out in that situation
in bear country, and I'm just prepared.

I've got my bear spray, I've got a p*stol,
my head is on a swivel,

I’m paying attention
to the terrain around me,

and making sure I don't get
caught in that situation again.

I imagine Todd would agree
that the most important lesson here

is to really trust
your gut from the beginning.

Just because a situation is familiar,

such as entering this landscape
right at dawn,

doesn't necessarily mean
it's the best thing to do.

When you're walking into bear territory,

especially where there
could be mother bears,

make sure that you're not alone.

To be and have an encounter
with a grizzly bear

and to survive it, I think is,
is just so lucky because things

could have gone so wrong,
it's just one claw in the wrong spot

or one bite in the back of my neck
could have k*lled me or paralyzed me.

I think that day was
kind of an eye opener,

the odds are I won't get attacked again,
but anytime you're in the woods,

and there's wildlife,
and there's predators out there,

something can happen,
and I knew that that was a possibility,

that's part of life, and I never felt like
I'm never gonna go back into the woods,

I want to enjoy that,
that outdoor exercise experience.

I want to see the wildlife,

get the photos and be part
of that and smell that fresh air.

I'm never gonna give that up,
and I'm always happy to be back out

and enjoy nature and the outdoors.