Having survived combat as well as a brain tumor, Army veteran Shayne Burke confidently says nothing he had encountered before equaled the danger he faced when he was attacked by a grizzly bear. "She definitely let me have it," he says.
An Army veteran on his honeymoon in Wyoming found himself in the fight of his life when he came face to face with a grizzly bear.
Shayne Burke, 35, and his wife Chloe were honeymooning in Grand Teton National Park when he was mauled by a grizzly bear that was looking after her cub. "She was attacking me to kill me because I was perceived as a threat," the combat veteran tells Inside Edition.
Burke had ventured off on his own to look for a rare great grey owl, while his wife looked after their dog, and so he was by himself when the bear attacked.
The bear bit Burke on the shoulder before tackling him, leaving him unable to reach for the bear spray he had on hand. "She definitely let me have it," he says.
As the bear mauled Burke, he lay face down with his fingers unlocked on the back of his neck. He still had his bear spray in his hand, and when the bear bit his hands and back of his neck, she simultaneously bit the can of bear spray and it exploded in her mouth, Burke recounted in a Facebook post. "This is what saved my life," he wrote.
"When I heard that pop, I really thought she had cracked into my head and I felt a warm sensation go down my back and coming down over my face, which turned out to be the bear spray," he tells Inside Edition. "She took off running."
After escaping the bear's clutches, Burke called his wife on his cellphone and told her what happened. Chloe, a paramedic, launched into what to do. "My mind just went right into, what needs to happen first, we need to stop the bleeding we need to get rescue rolling," she tells Inside Edition.
Chloe began giving her new husband instructions on how to create a tourniquet for his gaping injuries. He used a backpack strap as a makeshift tourniquet.
Burke was ultimately spotted by a search-and-rescue chopper that zeroed in on him after he called 911.
Burke was rushed to the hospital, where he had surgery and staples inserted in his wounds.
Having survived combat as well as a brain tumor, Burke confidently says nothing he had encountered before equaled the danger he faced when he was attacked by the grizzly bear. "That bear could've done anything it wanted to me and there was nothing I could've done," he says.
But still, Burke urged park rangers to not kill the bear if she's found since she was defending her cub.
