ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Coming face to face with a grizzly bear and living to tell the story -- it’s something movies are made of, but this is no movie. Doctors at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood are being credited with saving a man whose face was torn off by a grizzly bear.
Lee Brooke was hunting in Wyoming when he encountered a grizzly. After months of treatment in Colorado, he is now back home in Pennsylvania.
The attack happened in early October 2016, some 1,900 miles west of Lee’s Pennsylvania home in the mountains near Dubois, Wyoming.
Brooke, his brother-in-law George Neal and two friends set out to hunt elk. It was a trip that forever changed Brooke's life.
Brooke can no longer control tears. A good portion of his face is gone. He depends on a tracheal tube to tell his story.
The attack
“I don’t know how to say thank you,” Brooke told a crowd of neighbors and loved ones as he recalled the attack.
Neighbors have been rallying to help Brooke and his wife pay mounting medical bills.
In a county of just more than 40,000, Brooke was the lone Maytag repairman. He knows just about everyone in his town of Westfield, Pennsylvania.
At an event in early November, friends and longtime neighbors listened as Lee told his story.
“I should’ve bled to death right there,” Brooke told his community. “I should’ve least drowned on my blood.”
His story started with success -- a kill. Brooke approached an elk he shot a day earlier, but he saw something that told him he was in extreme danger.
Debris covered the game -- a clear sign that a bear had claimed the elk for herself and her cubs.
“I can still feel the adrenaline rush from seeing the elk,” Brooke said.
Brooke said he immediately turned to leave, but he was quickly off his feet and into the paws of a giant grizzly -- grabbing him from behind.
Brooke said the attack happened very quickly. His nose and upper lip were torn from his face. At some point, Brooke was knocked unconscious.
“I felt her sniffing my cheek,” Brooke said, recalling the moment he regained consciousness. “I felt the whiskers.”
The fight
Brooke said he had no choice but to fight. Not sure he would survive -- the thought of death doesn’t cross his mind.
He was determined to see his wife Martha again. Brooke said blood in his eyes made the fight difficult.
He hit the bear. She bit into his arm. His gun was not with him. A steak knife in his pocket was his only hope.
“I don’t know that I would have been brave enough to stab her if I could see her,” Brooke said. “I had to lean in to stab her in the head. So I was this close to her nose.”
After several strikes, the bear left Brooke. He was separated from his hunting party, but now, more than ever, determined to live.
Brooke said he felt no pain. That -- paired with his survival -- he calls a miracle.
“I think that was a divine intervention,” Brooke said.
Searching for help
After about an hour in the woods, Brooke said his prayer was answered. Not knowing it at the time, his yells for help were heard by couple in the area.
They called for help, but that help didn’t find Brooke before brother-in-law Neal arrived.
“I could hear Lee down over the bank,” Neal said.
Neal first found Brooke's nose and mustache. He put the nose and upper lip in Brooke's pocket. Anxious to find help, they started a slow journey down the mountain to reach cellphone service.
“I took my T-shirt off,” Neal said. “I tried to keep him warm. He was kind of shaking.”
Brooke was in a helicopter heading to Swedish Medical Center in Englewood seven hours after the attack.
