Over the following months and years, it felt as if my emotions were in a fierce battle. I loved my children desperately. My ability to love had exploded and expanded beyond anything I could have imagined. I would do anything for my kids. I did not let a day go by without them hearing me say, “I love you.” Every evening, I offered them a bedtime prayer and said good night with the words “I believe in you.” I did not want them to ever know the pain I had endured for so long.
Despite my determination to be a great dad, however, I did not believe I would ever achieve it. Though I didn’t talk about it, I was tormented by a voice inside that said that, because of me, my children were destined for a life of pain, that there was no way I could ever succeed as a dad. The conflict within me was unrelenting.
For better and worse, I remained a master at hiding my internal war from Rhea and the kids. I focused on showering them with the overpowering love I felt for each one of them. The motivation came easily—I had never known love like this before.
In those early years of fatherhood, I had no idea that this staggering love for my family would one day save my life.
14
* * *
I NEED YOU TO FIGHT
When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
—PSALM 34:17 ESV
4 P.M., TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
KENAI PENINSULA
The grizzly was in mid-leap, her white, razor-sharp fangs closing on my face.
My rifle shot hadn’t even fazed her. There was no time to cycle the bolt and chamber another round, no time to dodge or run. My only choice was to use the rifle itself as a defensive weapon.
Leaning forward, I extended the barrel like a spear toward the bear. What I would have given to have a bayonet on the end of that rifle. With the grizzly inches away, I plunged the barrel into the bear’s mouth and tried to drive it down her throat. The barrel struck something solid.
The six-hundred-pound brute smashed into me. It was like being hit by a pickup truck. At the same time, the rifle recoiled and smashed into my forehead like a blow from a baseball bat.
I was on the ground, the bear sliding over the top of me. The smell was horrendous, a mixture of rotten meat and feces that made me gag. I lay on my back and gasped for air. I tried to roll onto my side. Suddenly, two ten-inch-wide paws with extended claws slammed against my shoulders, pinning me on my back. Her upside-down face inches from mine, forelegs on my shoulders, the grizzly let out a bloodcurdling growl. I couldn’t move.
The first strike of the bear’s jaws came with lightning speed. My face disappeared in the bear’s mouth. Three-inch canines sank deep into my neck, face, and jaws, barely missing my carotid artery. I couldn’t breathe. My face erupted like a ripe pomegranate, sending a shower of blood into the air. A sudden ringing in my ears blocked out all other sound. Searing pain shot through the roof of my mouth.
I tried to scream through the bear’s clenched jaws, which only served to enrage her more. The bear bit down harder. The pain was indescribable.
I can’t believe this is happening.
The grizzly repositioned her bite and took the entire back of my head in her mouth. Whether from shock or the blood flowing into my eyes, I lost most of my vision along with my hearing. It was as though someone had placed a shroud over my head. I saw white light all around me, but could make out only the shadowy outline of the beast towering over me.
Without sight or hearing, I could no longer defend myself against the slashing bites being leveled against my body. I knew by the warmth on my neck that I was bleeding profusely.
The grizzly thrashed me and dragged me around like a rag doll, looking for that final moment to lunge at my neck and finish me off. When the bear released me for the second time, I snapped my head to the left and tucked my chin. I wanted to protect the gaping hole in my throat and apply what pressure I could in an attempt to slow the bleeding.
Seeing me still moving, the grizzly went into another tirade, tearing sections from my scalp and driving her teeth into my skull. I screamed again, causing the bear to once more bite harder. It felt like molten-hot brands of steel being driven into my brain.
My voice just makes her angrier. I’ve got to hold it in. If these were my last moments on earth, I would live them out in silence.
In a purely defensive reaction, I balled up my fist and delivered a punch to the snout of the bear. Over and over I slammed my fist into the bear’s face in an attempt to get her to release my head. Yet each blow served only to increase the pressure of the bear’s bite. This grizzly was determined to kill me, and my strength to defend myself was rapidly draining.
Lord, let me live or let me die, just please make it stop.
Suddenly, like the sound of a locomotive rushing by, the ability to hear roared back. Someone was sobbing uncontrollably—me. My cries had nothing to do with the pain but everything to do with the thought that I might never see my wife or kids again.
Please let me live to see my family again.
My mind had barely formed those desperate words when an overwhelming peace swept over me. It was as though God had embraced me in his arms and shielded me from the horrors of the attack. My entire world went silent again, but this time was different. It was a peaceful quiet. Then I was amazed to hear Rhea, Casey, Ben, and little Ciara calling to me. “Fight, Daddy!” my daughter said. “You have to fight to come home to us!” When I closed my eyes and listened to their voices in my mind, the memory of holding them all tight in my arms the night before I left for Alaska convinced me I couldn’t give up.
The Lord’s presence was as real as the predator standing over me. I sensed him assuring me that I would see my family again. As I lay on the ground, exhausted and drenched in blood, my world spinning, God spoke to me: “Greg, I love you. You are my son. I have shown you this vision of your family because I need you to fight right now.”
Even in the midst of the biggest crisis of my life, I was amazed that God loved me enough to meet me in that helpless moment.
Lord, I’ve given everything in my power to make it out of this alive. I don’t know if I have anything else. But if you’re telling me to fight, I must have something left. I’ll keep going till I’m unconscious or dead.
In the next instant, my sense of hearing became magnified. Though I still could not see, I was aware of every move the bear made as she circled me. In response to each thud of her paws, I rotated on my back, trying to keep my feet pointed toward the bear’s shifting position. When the grizzly approached on my right side, I again used my feet and legs to spin on the ground and try to keep her from tearing into my face and neck.
My desperate movements to keep my vital areas protected signaled that the bear’s tearing bites and the vicious swipes of her razor-sharp claws still had not incapacitated me. I don’t know what the grizzly was thinking, but she seemed more committed than ever to finishing the terrible task she’d begun.
Somehow she outmaneuvered me—before I realized it, the grizzly was near my head again, moving in for the kill. I heard a low, sustained growl from inches above me. Hot breath blew on my face.
When the bear’s paws struck my shoulders a second time, it felt like a car had landed on me. Once again, I was pinned.
I’m whipped here. In this position, there’s nothing I can do. I wish I could communicate with this bear and plead for mercy, tell her how much is at stake. I don’t want to lose my wife and kids!
With her fangs, the grizzly again tore into the side of my head above my left temple. I shrieked. Each time the grizzly’s teeth chomped down, it felt as though someone were branding my skull with a molten-hot poker.
Where is my brother? He must have heard the shot and my screams.
I’d lost count of the number of times I’d tried to keep the bear from reaching my neck, but I was not giving up. The Lord’s words echoed through my mind and heart: I need you to fight right now. I had nothing left. He was the one delivering the will
and strength for me to keep fighting. When the Lord’s words ended, they were replaced by the voices of my family crying out to me to fight.
Whenever the bear released her fangs, I felt another deluge of my own warm blood run down my head and neck. I tried to move my head away each time she lunged with snapping jaws. When I turned my head to the side, the continuous stream of blood that poured from my mouth and throat drained onto the ground and I could breathe. However, that also made my neck vulnerable to a final, fatal bite.
With the grizzly’s next lunge, the entire back of my head again disappeared within her massive jaws, sending the pain to yet another level. I thought she was going to crush my skull. Though it had only enraged the bear the first time, in desperation I found myself again pounding my fists against the side of the grizzly’s huge snout.
I shifted my target and was able to deliver three hard blows near the bear’s ear. She must not have liked the sensation, because on the fourth punch, the jaws released their hold and then locked onto my lower right arm. With one bite and a violent head shake, she drove her fangs, still dripping with blood from my head, all the way through the flesh and muscle of my arm.
She’s tearing my arm off!
The grizzly let go of my arm and turned her focus back to my head. I felt the release of weight from my shoulders as she repositioned. Quickly, I flipped onto my belly. Tucking my chin down against my chest, I tried to use my neck muscles to put pressure on the bleeding coming from the jagged, tennis ball–sized hole in my throat.
I was losing touch with my senses. Shock was setting in. My injured arm was numb. While I feared that I might lose consciousness, my mind snapped back to my EMT training. What could I do to save my own life?
As I strained to control the bleeding from my neck, I interlaced my fingers across my spine at the base of my head for protection. I knew there was no way I would survive another onslaught if I was pinned on my back. My only chance was to remain on my belly and protect my neck, face, and vital organs. I spread and locked my legs in a V to make the base of my body wider. This made it more difficult for the grizzly to flip me again. I also pointed my elbows straight out. I could use them to fight the bear’s attempts to roll me over.
Twisting onto my stomach and assuming a defensive position took less than a couple of seconds. With my fingers interlaced over the top of my neck, I felt warm blood begin pouring out of my right coat sleeve and into my ear.
The bear was relentless. She wasted no time coming along my right side to choose her next point of attack. Leaning over and breathing heavily over the top of me, the grizzly reached an enormous foreleg across my back, trying to hook the left side of my rib cage with her claws and turn me over. Spreading my legs even further, I fought the force of the bear’s paw. Frustrated at the failed attempt, she raised her paw above my head, claws extended.
The grizzly struck a devastating blow, dislodging my tightly clenched fingers and leaving a seven-inch gash across the back of my head. The bear’s claws had ripped through my flesh starting just above the top of my left ear and extending to the base of my neck. The slash came within millimeters of hitting the vertebrae in my neck and tearing through my spinal cord. Blood poured from the wound as if from a flowing bathroom faucet. She’d sliced all the way to my skull. The sound of claw against bone was like someone running their fingernails down a chalkboard.
I’d been nearly scalped. What chance did I have now?
The sound of Ciara’s voice filled my mind. She was still calling to me: “Please come home, Daddy. Fight!”
I quickly repositioned my hands to again cover the back of my neck and spine. The grizzly let out a primal “Woof!” and sunk her teeth deep into my left side, just under my armpit. With her jaws locked tight, the grizzly used her powerful neck muscles to lift me more than three feet off the ground.
I can’t believe she’s lifting me—she’s trying to roll me over!
While hanging from the bear’s jaws, I spread out both my arms and my legs to fight being flipped. Obviously infuriated that I wouldn’t just die, the bear slammed me to the ground on my face. I knew she was searching my back again for another place to sink her teeth. This grizzly had certainly faced stronger and more determined victims. She was not giving up.
But neither was I. The Lord had assured me that I would see my family again, and I believed it. In my mind, I could still see Ciara calling to me. I was not going down without a fight.
My adrenaline was fading. How much more could my mind and body take? The last two minutes had felt like two hours. All that motivated me to keep fighting was the love of my wife and children and those echoing words from God that I would survive.
Why couldn’t I see anything? Lord, why, at the worst possible moment, had you allowed the bear to take my eyesight? I’d lost count of the number of bites my body had endured. I knew the bear had done a number on my face and head. Had she bitten into my eyes, rendering me permanently blind? Had the grizzly torn my face off?
At that thought, despair overtook me. Would my family see me as a disfigured monster—or, worse, would I appear so hideous that they would be unable to look at me? My will to fight threatened to melt into a pool of hopelessness. I found the strength to raise my head one more time. Through a torn and bloody face, I whispered, “Please, Lord, let me see my family again.”
As soon as I lay my head back down, daggers sank into my left hip. With her jaws once again locked onto my body, the bear used the strength in her hind legs to back up while dragging me sideways toward the dense brush. With each pull, the grizzly’s teeth sank deeper into my hip. The pain was indescribable. I groped to take hold of anything I could to slow down our progress. Where there was nothing, I dug my fingers into the ground.
The bear stopped. I heard her move to my right side. I knew this would be my last opportunity to fight off her attack.
With adrenaline surging, I kicked blindly with my right leg, violently impacting somewhere on the bear’s body. I tried to visualize where the grizzly’s head was. I pulled my leg back and delivered another kick. I made contact with both blows, but neither seemed to faze the reaper circling me.
Drawing on what little strength I had left, I drew my leg back and kicked at what I guessed was the bear’s face. This was my strongest strike yet, but the grizzly was ready for me. Mid-kick, she caught my leg just below the knee in her mouth and sank her fangs deep into my lower leg.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
The pain shot straight up my spine. She must have hit a main nerve. I was in agony. I thought I was going to pass out. I knew the end was near and that my body was shutting down. My leg went lifeless in the grip of the bear’s mouth. All I felt was the pressure of the bite. I no longer sensed pain. Feeling the last bit of strength drain from my body, I drew in what I fully expected to be my last breath.
Through the huffs of the grizzly’s heavy breathing, I heard another sound—the shouts of a human voice.
“Whoa, bear!”
It was Matt.
15
* * *
TERROR AND TRAUMA
Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot people remember is the one that gets past you.
—PAUL WILKINSON
Standing up for and protecting others had always been important to me. It was part of my DNA, something I inherited from my dad. When I was growing up, he put his personal safety at risk each day as a highway patrolman so that he could help and protect the public. Dad also taught me to defend my brothers if they were ever in a jam. By the time I was an adult, the desire to shield men, women, and children from harm was as much a part of me as my name.
After 9/11, when I worked on the Pile at Ground Zero and heard in my mind the screams of three thousand helpless Americans, that desire exploded. I felt that I had personally failed our citizens and that I had to do something about it. The drive to stop cowardly terrorists from inflicting death and suffering on an innocent populatio
n consumed me. I would no longer settle for being a responder. Until my dying breath, I would do everything I could to stop these fanatics.
Over the next eighteen months after I returned from New York, I traveled across the country to meet with experts and attend U.S. Department of Homeland Security antiterrorism and counterterrorism courses. After some heavy lobbying, I was granted permission by my fire chief to develop and establish a new Terrorism Response Operations Division within Eastside Fire and Rescue. Our staff of ten was made up of two managers and eight new terrorism liaison officers who were trained in terrorism prevention and response. The training included how to respond to a vehicle bomb or a suicide bomber attack at a large public gathering such as a movie theater or football stadium, among other venues. We also acquired equipment and protective suits that would enable us to respond to incidents involving chemical and biological weapons such as VX, sarin, anthrax, smallpox, and phosgene. Later, I flew to London to be briefed by fire officers who had responded to the 2005 transportation bombings there, known as 7/7. I was obsessed with figuring out how to defend our country and the public from a deadly terrorist attack.
I believed the next attack would involve multiple, simultaneous, and coordinated strikes against a city or county. Managing the response to such an event and tracking down the perpetrators would require air assets. As a result, I added a commercial helicopter pilot’s license to go with my fixed-wing license so I could fly both airplanes and helicopters. I began training with a local search-and-rescue organization that flew both Hueys and Hughes 500 Little Bird helicopters. That group brought me on as a copilot to assist with flying rescue missions in the mountains.
Wild Awakening Page 11