Caitlin Van Mol 0:02
This episode contains descriptions of violence and graphic descriptions of injuries and surgery. Listener discretion is advised.

Johan 0:13
That was an interesting thing. So I'm at the zoo for the first time, right? And the first time I saw a bear again, the bear was not going to be bound, which is like, Oh, God, that could be my head, right there was a little weird.

Caitlin Van Mol 0:25
Johan otter grew up in the Netherlands, and met his wife, Marilyn, while working as a physical therapist at San Gabriel Valley Medical Center just outside of Los Angeles. He loves running and keeps very unconventional hours, he gets up and is out for his daily run around 3am. Here in Maryland, and their two daughters, Jenna and Stephanie, would often go on hiking vacations,

Johan 0:55
originally from the Netherlands, right, and we don't have a lot of nature back there. You don't have big animals, it's different environment, incredibly urban. And of course, the western United States is not so when the youngest one was old enough, we started traveling and doing hikes to Yellowstone, and Grand Teton, or any of the parks that we have in California. And the West Coast is just amazing, right? And so from then on, so Jenna, basically at a young age learns to appreciate nature of the two of us are always more interested in seeing what's beyond the next curve, basically, more so than my wife and my younger daughter. That's kind of how it all came to be. For high school graduation. Obviously, Jenna wanted to do more hiking with me, just to get beyond beyond the mountain and see what's behind it.

Caitlin Van Mol 1:47
So the AUG after Gemma's high school graduation in 2005, they went on a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. We'd

Johan 1:55
been there once before, and we knew how beautiful it was. But so when we went to dinner the night before, we walked by a rather large black bear, and I would say 2030 feet, but everyone else was as well. So you kind of must be okay.

Speaker 1 2:14
If the city there. Of

Johan 2:17
course, that's a nature but it's like, well, it's just a black bear. Don't do anything.

Caitlin Van Mol 2:22
So being such like an experienced hiker and traveler, how much you did you know about bear safety going into this trip?

Johan 2:29
I would say just like any tourists, right? I mean, luckily, I'm both gentle myself. We're, we're the kind of people who beat the instructions. You know, it's like, okay, there's bears or hops here. I mean, and we still had this. You have this romanticized idea about wildlife. We think about nature as a big zoo. They're not going to attack us. Nothing's gonna happen here. That kind of stuff. It's yeah, it's a it's a weird city person type of mindset. I think that was previously

Caitlin Van Mol 3:03
very, like Disney animals.

Johan 3:05
And if you would have asked me that, prior to our experience, it was of course not, you know, No, I totally understand all that. Other than seeing

Caitlin Van Mol 3:14
a bear that close, energized Johan for the hike the next day, he wanted to be out on the trail before anyone else to see it at its most pristine.

Johan 3:25
And so it's a beautiful trip. And there's a lot of beaver evidence. And it's just fascinating. It was just an I would say an idyllic setting just amazing. After you go through the quote unquote, forest, you get above the larger trees, basically, you get closer to the tree line. And then the environment opens up, and the views are amazing. In the meantime, it was a golden eagle flying over here. And of course, I'm all into that. I want to feel much and generous a C'mon that we really have to keep going. So I'm like, okay, okay.

Caitlin Van Mol 4:05
They wanted to do another trail in the afternoon. So there was no time to dawdle. And

Johan 4:10
I have everything on me. Of course, I'm the dad, I have to be to the middle. Basically, it attacks everything. So Janice ahead of me. And now we're getting into a serious hiking because we need to finish this drill and we're halfway up the more barren part of the trail on the way and that one, the left side of you. It's a steep drop, I mean, maybe 1000 feet, it's steep. It's a couple of rocks in between, basically. And then on the right, there's a sheer cliff going up as far as water dripping from it.

Caitlin Van Mol 4:43
And how wide is the path at that point? Because

Johan 4:45
you can kind of stand to people next to one another, but you wouldn't want to walk that way because it'd be kind of scary for the left. Yeah. And when you go up, you know when there's a rock sticking out, you can really see around it It just kind of keeps your view away. And so Jenna goes around this rock and steps back and says something like, oh no or whatever. And just the pure rental instincts, you know, sticks in. And so I naturally just stepped in front of whatever she was stepping away from to kind of like, okay, there's something that I have no idea what it is. And first thing I see is teeth and, and claws. Basically, the first thought was like, oh, that's amino Bhature. Just again, thinking about the largest printer that we have in Holland at that point. It's like, okay, yeah, that's it. That's a nasty animal.

Caitlin Van Mol 5:43
But it wasn't a badger. It was something way worse. A Mama Grizzly Bear protecting her cubs. This is live to tell the podcast where I talk to some of the bravest people who have been through the most horrifying things, and lived to tell the tale. I'm Caitlin van mol.

Johan 6:10
It was between point two and point seven or per second. Actually, something ran into me basically. And what happened is the bear basically jumped forwards. It hit my eye, and a bit my upper thigh on the left side. And I'm not realizing what's happening at that point. But having this time my grandpa's my daughter's behind me. And, and it is really what these things happen within seconds and split seconds seem to last forever. That particular moment was when time stood still in a way and it's the most bizarre thing and, and it seems like everything's kind of moving through molasses basically like, and then it's interrupted by really fast stuff as well. It's really bizarre concept in a way. And then whatever it was, hit me again, and my thigh did meet again. And then you're like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, that's like my whole front six posts, like I'm not in a fetal position away, I'm supposed to be. Of course, my bear spray is in my backpack, so on. And so on the left side is a cliff, but there's kind of like this sticky outy thing, and there's some bushes and I think I can jump for that. Because if I stay standing here, I mean, the front is going to be ripped open, and I'm not going to be gone. So that's when I made the decision to basically just throw myself off the cliff. Go to the library about 25 feet down North Carolina in the bushes. And then then the time became normal again. And then you go from this really violence thing to nothing. It this this was really possession. I was like, Okay, there's no noise. There's no nothing, there's no bear.

Caitlin Van Mol 7:57
In the brief moment where Johan could assess what was happening, he immediately realized that if the bear didn't follow him, it was still on the trail. With Jenna.

Johan 8:09
I need to get that animal back to me or Jenna needs to go. What I didn't realize at that point bear spray had actually fallen out of my backpack on the trail and genocides and try to pick it up. But didn't remind me to pull the little plug back before you can spray it basically. In the meantime, just bear it's running. So where does she tripped, fainted, fell or whatever. She doesn't necessarily call but she fell off the cliff way past me about 50 feet down how to latch. And so with that fall, she broke her back. And this is you couldn't walk at that point. It was too painful. So she crawled behind the bush. Johan

Caitlin Van Mol 8:54
couldn't let the bear follow Jenna. So he had to draw it toward himself.

Johan 8:59
So I called for the bear basically because I saw it above me. And just with my left eye because I couldn't see it on my right eye anymore. And I've never seen anything move so fast from the trail on top of me it was kind of one of the you know, Spider Man movies type of thing. It's like bizarre, but luckily at that point, I was able to get into the fetal position protect my head. There was like pulling me up and down in my backpack. And another weird thing happening besides the timeless bizarre it's like your thoughts kind of bizarre to they don't necessarily match the danger of the environment because now I'm like oh my gosh, is this you know interesting? It's like this animals Pull me up and down in my backpack that's really strong. Then the realization system well wait a minute if that happens to Janet Jenna has no backpack because I have everything on me. It's gonna rip her apart. So that's the decision then to okay there's Bernie to say really needs to stay It made I made another fall, but I hadn't realized it actually went up there by the scruff and pull this to have with me. And so we together fell about 30 feets now just from vertical shoots have landed on my back and ahead of bear and my right

Unknown Speaker 10:18
on just like rock, a rock, solid

Johan 10:21
rock. Yes. And yet the falling was more comfortable than the attack. And so now I have a bear in my hands and the bears looking at me. And as these two Amber brown eyes it's not dark Rounders, Amber brown eyes staring at me still remember seeing that? First I thought oh, maybe I can hit it with a rock so I went with my left hands to grab for some rocks couldn't find anything that was solid material. Just dust basically because the shield really kind of disgusting Tasmanian touch it and I'm like can't can't throw dust in its face. And that is really going to piss it off. And so I turned around again and put my hands again on my head. And this animal has now gotten incredibly mad at me truly tried to take my head off, it was jumping on me and it feels things cracking the top of my back, so I knew stuff was breaking. While

Caitlin Van Mol 11:14
the bear was attacking Johan, he had an out of body experience. Sort of

Johan 11:20
it's kind of bizarre how you remember all these details. And one of the things with wonders bear was really on top of me. It kind of had the sensation as if I was watching myself and someone said oh my god, you had an out of body experience. I'm not sure about that stuff. You know, I'm not making anything off it but I was definitely watching myself with this thing on top of me. And then I had this illusion as if I was a stuntman in a Hollywood movie. But the stuntman was getting injured and don't do stunts and normally not get injured. And so those thoughts were going through my mind as well. So you can see in a timeframe of minutes you have this fantasy stories and everything happening at the same time bizarre bizarre to to experience that it's

Caitlin Van Mol 12:13
almost like you have to be outside yourself to survive this exactly.

Johan 12:17
Had no pain by the way, I could feel things like you could feel things you know biting you. I could feel things cracking in my neck. I knew that was painful, but that that was just not a feeling it was going to be useful for me I got this

Caitlin Van Mol 12:32
delusion that he was a stuntman didn't make the bear or the damage it was causing any less real and

Johan 12:40
then it beat my head wants really hard so I could feel it to go in. Okay, so Okay, so okay, and that bid me again on the left side and I'm really good for Fang going into the bottom of my scope. And that's what I was okay. This is getting too bad. If this continues it's really going to kill me. I can do anything at the gym and wash it that's when I rip myself in to loose from the animal and fellow another 25 feet and with my feet on a rock, and I could sense it wasn't anything below me. So we had sensitive get to

Caitlin Van Mol 13:15
at this point. He's now fallen from the trail down 25 feet, then pulled the bear with him down another 30 feet and was now standing on an extremely narrow cliff. Another 25 feet down. Luckily, the bear didn't jump down to Johan on the ledge. It seemed to be walking away. But then Johan heard a terrible noise.

Johan 13:43
Then truly, the worst thing happens at that point is that you came across Jana and elaborate screen

Johan 14:01
take your time. It's been 18 years

Johan 14:11
you tried to protect your girl in thought it just wasn't good enough. And then I didn't hear anything. And so that was kind of scary for a moment. Right. Johan

Caitlin Van Mol 14:29
had done everything he could to protect his daughter, including throwing himself in front of the bear several times. He was just too far and too injured to draw the bear back again. He didn't hear anything for about a minute and a half.

Johan 14:48
So I called out and that was a scary thing to have to do that election. He kind of don't want to know the answer in a way right because what if you hear nothing but So

Johan 15:08
you get the worst sound in the world and the best sound in the world in two minutes timeframe. And that was just amazing. Oh my god, she's still alive. And then. And then she basically said, So how will you and I've got me kind of bad. That's the only thing I said. I was kind of injured. And then I said, Jenna, how are you? She's, I'm fine.

Caitlin Van Mol 15:30
We're about to hear Johan describe their injuries. So if that's not something you want to hear, skip ahead about a minute and a half.

Johan 15:39
But I didn't realize she had her finger in a hole in her head. Because when the bear came across her when she screams, she kind of reached out her hands kind of what you would normally do is something comes at you. And it's better in the shoulder and pulled her out in a better interface. And ripped open the bottom of her of her cheek. And so with that bite on her cheek, but also tooth going into top of her school, and this is how big these mouths are. Mitch had a big hole there and special honor to put a finger in there just in case it's bleeding to stop the bleeding. So that was conviction. And, and then the weird surreal thing comes back again, like oh, okay, I'm on the side of the mountain. And I can see out of my right eye. Well, maybe it's hanging down my cheeks. I'm going up my cheeks to see if my eyes hanging. Which is a weird concept to think about at that point. And then, okay, it's not hanging out, well, maybe I can still see it. My eyes, I'm opening my eyelids. And oh, I can see and I can see the leg perfect. The rest, I can fix a little surgery. I'm gonna worry about that part. And then I'm feeling the strings hanging in front of my face. And what is this? Looks like here. And so basically, with strings from my scalp are hanging down. So I'm like, Okay, so I'm feeling this bone, like that. And at that point, I started yelling help. And then she started getting help and her health sounded like she had good lung powers. No, great. I mean, she looks like she's doing okay. While

Caitlin Van Mol 17:18
they were calling for help. Johan tried to clean himself up a bit. He knew how gruesome he must look and remembered a piece of advice he read in a book the previous day. And

Johan 17:30
I had a little nylon jacket in my backpack, which was still on the camera was still hanging around my neck, by the way. So I'm like, Okay, I need to get this jacket out. Because of course, the night before, I've read one of those books about, you know, the worst 100 attacks in the United States or something about bears and typical terrorists. So I took the jacket out, and this person had done this herself to protect her heads from from a bear. It's not gonna look good. That's a good idea. So I did the same thing. Because you're like, Well, wait a minute, I'm gonna look terrible if someone else sees me. Yeah. So I put the head of the jacket over over my head, actually. And then remember what they tell you in the airplanes, if something bad happens, don't worry about your luggage and you get yourself out. Right. So being a kind of a rule follower. I thought about that. It's like, okay, take the backpack off. camera off. And climb up and good. Fine, Jana, like climbed up about the 25 feet back to the platform I had originally fallen to. And then I got a little woozy. I'm like, Oh, no. I sat back down again. It's okay. Because really the next fall down, there was nothing. There was a was 1000 there was deaths basically, it just was just the way it was. Yeah, and another and this kind of, it's come a bit. Sorry, I think about it's been 18 years, and I still remember every second of this right.

Caitlin Van Mol 19:01
And it was many seconds, many minutes until someone would find them. So it took like 45 minutes just for one person to find you. What is your mind doing in those 45 minutes?

Johan 19:18
Yeah, good. Good question. Yeah, because of course, we were yelling it right help. But you had during that time you try to keep yourself comfortable. Although you may not have pain, you're so uncomfortable. And I just couldn't get comfort, right? And it's like I couldn't lay down. That was just not comfortable for my head. If I set up I was just kind of woozy. So it's kind of just positioning yourself as best as you can. Keeping, you know, just at least vocal touch with my daughter. How are you doing? She's fine. Okay, good. Perfect.

Caitlin Van Mol 19:54
Finally, a couple of hikers heard their yells and came across Jenna. There was no self On service in the park, so one of the hikers ran to get more help. The other slid down the mountain to the landing where Johann was. He asked how he could make Johan more comfortable. And as more and more hikers came across the scene, they threw down jackets and sweaters to keep him warm. And give him a makeshift pillow. Another group of hikers was with Jana. People are

Johan 20:25
just so nice. But others are in, in, in peril, right? I mean, you get a really good appreciation of humankind, we were I was so nasty to watch ourselves in a way that people truly are nice. It doesn't matter, you know, your backgrounds, or anything like that didn't matter. We were people. And that was that was beautiful. His two girls came down to keep us comfort. And one of them say, gentlemen, stay with me. And I started to shake at that point. But I was just, I didn't realize I'd lost a lot of love. And so one of them put her body on top of mine just to kind of keep me warm, right? And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I mean, I'm full. I'm dirty, right? Be careful. And she's like, No, don't worry about it. It was just so nice. People were just amazing. It was

Caitlin Van Mol 21:19
two hours before the rescue crew arrived. When they got there. Johan was so uncomfortable on the small cliff. He threatened to climb up the mountain to the trail himself, if nobody would help him.

Johan 21:32
No, no, no, you came over came over, like Nope. Unless you help me up, I'm gonna do it myself. So to help would have to help me, because it was just too uncomfortable because I felt this big rock sticking in the back of my neck. Well, afterwards, I learned that I broken my neck, several spots. And that was probably what I was feeling the bone sticking into a different direction than they were supposed to. And then when the Rangers came, of course, I mean, they then took over, right. And they were just incredible as well. I mean, the professionalism was Gary Moses. And Katie was Clevenger. That was sitting in my head. And and then you have Gary right next to me. And Gary told me later that he could not move backwards because he would have fallen off the cliff. And so that's it. This is how precarious the situation still is. And they're trying to keep me comfortable. And now that jacket had put over my head, it sealed down on my skull could have possibly saved my life, because you have two arteries going through there to do its best concealed Sharpton, which is kind of cool, right? So they left that on, obviously. And they put some fluid in me, because my blood pressure was basically going down, down, down. And then when they put fluid in me, I started leaking everywhere. Basically, because I have wounds everywhere and they weren't leaking because I have lost so much blood wasn't no fluid to leak out anymore. It's like, oh my gosh, you spotted leaks everywhere. Even

Caitlin Van Mol 23:05
though Johan was literally leaking, he still kept his sense of humor. And

Johan 23:11
so then another range of came a female vein, she started to pull my pants off. And that's when I kind of became myself again. I was like, oh, wait a minute. Because have Katie was kind of crying here. I mean, she was she was upset what what she was seeing at that point, Gary was holding himself very professional now. And then his other arranger. And I needed to, in a way, you need to break the moment, right? I mean, there's humor everywhere, even in situations like that. And I basically say when the woman started pulling my pants down, it's like, Hey, if you folks ever seen Seinfeld, the series Seinfeld got like, yeah, it was kind of like okay, what's this go? How is this at all relevant? Exactly. Said, Okay. Have you ever watched that episode about jorts and shrinkage? And looked at me and they started laughing because they knew what I said. Okay, no assessment when you pull my pants down, okay, because it's cold and I lost a lot of a lot of fluids.

Caitlin Van Mol 24:20
While Johan was feeling more himself, the Rangers still needed to get him to a hospital. A rescue team tried to attach hooks into the mountain wall to hoist Johann up from the ledge, but they couldn't find rock solid enough to hold the hooks. They had to attempt a risky helicopter rescue, where Johann would be secured to a stretcher, then a man on a rope would be lowered down by the helicopter. He would then secure the stretcher to the rope and they would both be lifted, dangling below the helicopter and flown to a waiting ambulance. And then

Johan 24:55
the rescue was of course amazing. and just just to kind of watch, it's um, Gary Moses promised me the best view of my life. I didn't get any view. But you're hanging under a helicopter basically. And there's a there's a guy that sits right on top of you. And the guy called himself a dope on your belt. Just the nicest man on the flight nervous I just amazing that these people do that. Right that they, they themselves put themselves in jobs like that to help people like myself. Yeah, just Yeah, I was just mean everything that people did everyone on the trail. It was it was like a community effort to help someone. And actually, when when the helicopter pilots can put me down was one of the best transfers, and everything was nice and gentle. Kim has become one of my best friends. Once

Caitlin Van Mol 25:51
Johan was safely on the ground, the helicopter immediately went back to get Jana. Johan waited in the ambulance for her.

Johan 25:59
So they asked me if it was okay to pick up Jen. I'm like, well, it's like, Don't worry about me. Go get her. And and they allowed me and Jenna to talk apps that I had pulled her down and basically said, Janet, make sure your don't want to call us. Because you could be really bad at us. You know, you start to think about all these other people around you, right? Because if at least if my wife would hear my daughter's voice right away, she knew wasn't anything bad with her.

Caitlin Van Mol 26:32
Once your hand got to the hospital, doctors descended on him and got to work. You

Johan 26:38
end up from the environment of colds grows blood, there's waters everywhere, right? Into this pristine, beautiful white environment, but only beautiful people and his white coats. Like, oh my god, I died and went to heaven. But I didn't really die. But I'm still in heaven. Right? Art is amazing. And I kept thinking everyone afterwards wanted to position so told me we're one of our most thankful patients we've ever had. And they were just everyone from the pilots, the parents of the fixed wing plane pilot of the helicopter. It's always hard to talk about those people that are helping you feel very guilty towards. Yeah, I'm sorry, David. I caught this as myself in a way, right. I'm so sorry about that. But yeah, but now do your job.

Caitlin Van Mol 27:33
As much as Johan didn't want to be a burden, he was still gravely injured. The Montana hospital staff cleaned him up and stabilized him before he was flown to a hospital in Seattle that was better equipped to handle his injuries. My

Johan 27:50
whole scalp was gone, right? Something's gone. And that's exposed. That's a risk for infection and death. And so that had to be fixed. First, I had a huge open wound in my arm and some some tenants were broken or torn so that had to be fixed to my eye, of course needed to be fixed. He

Caitlin Van Mol 28:09
also had a compound fracture on his see to vertebra. In JOHANNS work as a physical therapist, he already knew what the options were.

Johan 28:18
I knew I didn't want surgery, I didn't want a fusion happened to my neck because that would make me stiff. So I'd seen as a therapist and once a fusions done and they have to do another fusion and not a fusion and people just end up in this vicious circle of pain and more disability. It's much better if the body can heal itself and we don't fuse something but sometimes you have no option because that's the only way right luckily I had the option of let let it heal by itself. Letting

Caitlin Van Mol 28:47
it heal by itself meant Johann would have to have his head and neck stabilized in a contraption called a halo. A Halo is a cram like ring that is attached to the head by pins drilled into the skull. four bars attached to the ring on one end are also attached to a vest fitted to the torso, so that the neck and the head are in a fixed position. If you've seen Mean Girls, the original not the musical remake. Regina had a halo after getting hit by the bus.

Johan 29:20
So you can imagine I'm on pain medication at that point. And I'm being wheeled Dan and at that point maybe not treated like a person or more again like a sack of potatoes unfortunately. And I hear people talking around me there's kind of explaining just rogue explanation to me, and they start screwing the screws into my head. But a hand explained to me don't want to do that depression is going to be intense. It's kind of feel as if your head is in a nutcracker and and I thought my head was kind of like open up like a Walmart basically and it's really intense, and oh just hurts a lot.

Caitlin Van Mol 30:04
The doctors realized they had forgotten to give him any local anesthetics before they started drilling.

Johan 30:11
So they screw the screws back out again, which hurts again. So they gave me some pain. The least that superficial pain was gone. So you want to just like screwing the screws into someone's without any any anesthesia basically she's done that superficial feeling regardless whether your payments or not.

Caitlin Van Mol 30:30
Johan had to live in this contraption for three months.

Johan 30:35
So I what, when people asked me I said, Well, what do you think? How do you think that would feel as a whole would be terrible? I'm like, That's exactly how it is. It's just as bad as it was like, um, luckily, I was able to take a payment in the morning. So the first thing I would wake up was the payment in the morning and, and one during the day. So I kind of was in little bit but yeah, it was okay. But getting the debt when you're when you're in mobile like that it feels terrible sleeping, you know, how do you sleep? By you can really I'm sleeping it back. And luckily, my wife was able to roll up some towels and put them on the sides. So head was still you know, support it. Yeah. Good thing though, about this halo, which was secondary to just immobilization or your neck was the fact that I couldn't put pressure on speaker amps they put on my head, right? And because they had to take a muscle out of my sight, cut it to size, and then slap it on top of my head basically to create a new,

Speaker 1 31:31
a new head slapping on top. I'm sorry.

Johan 31:39
It was a really good looking steak. Let's say that right? That's what they took out. Yeah, it seems so like, yeah, gross. But it's not.

Caitlin Van Mol 31:48
As you'll hear, I strongly disagree that it's not gross. And if you're squeamish at all, I would recommend skipping ahead about two minutes this time. Before he even got the halo. Johan went through multiple surgeries to handle the rest of his injuries.

Johan 32:06
And the nice thing about this muscle, the two halves of latissimus dorsi. Right. It's the one the muscle that you do you use for pull ups and stuff like that. It has its own vein and artery and connect that to a vein and

Speaker 1 32:18
artery right here. Johan is pointing to his temple. And

Johan 32:22
so it's just a beautiful way of thinking about this. And they use that muscle a lot for other things too. And people lose other body parts because of cancer and things like that. But it's just ingenious. The way to do it is of course to it's a very delicate surgery and I'm talking about your slapping. It's a little bit more than that.

Caitlin Van Mol 32:45
So does that grow back? Now?

Johan 32:48
Yeah, you just missed that.

Unknown Speaker 32:49
Oh, no, we can't do pull ups.

Johan 32:51
Yeah, I could never do them anyway. So

Johan 33:01
it took it from my right side. Actually, that was the most painful thing to shave it off. Yeah, think about that. Yeah. I'm like you take a basis to slice.

Caitlin Van Mol 33:13
Okay, that's. Yeah, so then you just have like another gaping wound? Yeah,

Johan 33:21
basically. Yeah. And that was incredibly uncomfortable. And they kind of they make a mesh out of the skin and put it on top of your head and you have that sitting on top of this slab of meat to get at this heavy body. It's amazing what we can do in medicine.

Caitlin Van Mol 33:41
It is truly amazing. It is also really gross. Meanwhile, Jenna was still back in Montana being treated at Kalispell hospital. Jenna would

Johan 33:53
update me obviously. And so she had to wear a turtle shell because he needed to keep her fracture stabilized basically in her back and she was able to take that off afterwards. Her mouth was torn, open it surgery and Kalispell and you know, this is always our thinking right in like the big city. So it's San Diego, we're like, well, let's go to a quote unquote, real plastic surgeon and see what job they did. Well, she went to one of our best plastic surgeons, Dr. Silva, and you looked at him, he's like, it's such a beautiful job and couldn't have done better. Which is just such a compliment to the folks that we were taking care of in Montana, right. So but anyway, so Janice, recovery was actually really, really good.

Caitlin Van Mol 34:42
While he was thrilled about Shannon's recovery. Johan was having a hard time mentally dealing with his own. So

Johan 34:49
after all the surgeries done I couldn't move right my my, everything was bandaged. My head is in a vise and you just want to sort of go to sleep and get through it. And you're in an ICU and ICU is a noisy, and so it's not conducive for sleeping. And my worst device was the clock on the wall. And it was a torture device. Because I thought it slept. And I looked at the clock, and it only had moved maybe 15 minutes. And it felt like, you know, minutes, lots of hours, hours, lots of days, it was the worst time in my life was to be in an ICU like that. And I started to panic. You get these semi panic attacks, actually, the the mental journey is much tougher than in a physical, physical urine, you can see mental journey you can say, and give the sides of question, initial panic attacks and such I did have a psychiatrist come to me and said, you know, you're gonna get post traumatic stress, and you may not want to take something for it, right. And I took something and it made me completely filled the crests. And I actually was like, I don't like what you just gave me. So well. Let's take it off. You don't have technique? That's right now we'll see how it goes. And that's the only time I had any professional. Come talk to me that way. Basically, my wife recognized that the nurse that was with me recognized that nurse actually stayed with me in extra shifts. And I mentioned this, you staying with your patient for 24 hours? That's amazing. Yeah. Again, the the kind of care I was getting was just beautiful. People really caring about people. I mean, I work in a health care organization, right. I work at Scripps in San Diego, and the CEO, and the chief medical officer and one of the other big chiefs in the organization that has flown down to come see me, think about how special is that? Right? And that that does give you an extra willpower, that you really need to reduce kind of episodes, you really need support.

Caitlin Van Mol 37:09
During this visit. Johan also found out that his insurance was paying to fly him back to San Diego, where he would continue to heal at Scripps Memorial Hospital where he worked. This was a huge relief to Johan to be going home. Not only would he be in a familiar environment, but he would get to see his other daughter Stephanie, for the first time since the attack mean

Johan 37:34
emotional, right? Because it's like this. I mean, because they're still to this day. So how should Garga they always mean gentlemen Stebbings like I got to which one is which one you mean, but I know what they mean, to be mean. But yeah, it was of course that was a motion to and luckily, I was able to see her of course when I got to the hospital in in La Jolla. And the interesting thing is, you find out who your real friends are. And so I have so many real friends. It's amazing. And one of them called me and asked me What can I do? And I said, you know, I need some help, because Steffi just turned 16 I need to get a car for her and I can go out and I know you've been a car dealer before, can you help out? How they helped out? When I got home from the hospital. Tom gave me a call and said, Hey, she'd like glue. I don't know for what it's like for a car. Like I don't know, let me ask. And so I asked, Hey, Stephanie, I blue she'd like, provide my work card like Sure. Tom says I'm on my way with the dealer. The guy bought me a car for my daughter. Just like he just had more joy in giving to us than anything. I just gave him such joy that he was able to do to Coronavirus friends, which is Yeah, I mean, all these people, you know, and you're really good friends with him. But you don't know how good you actually have with these people. You need to really appreciate everyone around you right?

Caitlin Van Mol 39:07
After three incredibly uncomfortable months of bad sleep. Johan was finally healed enough to get the halo off. But not having this big contraption on him presented another set of challenges. So

Johan 39:22
when you walk around with a halo, everyone walks around you with a big they've done dare to come too close to you, which is wonderful because you don't want to be touched and you want to be bumped into right after the halo come off. There was no physical obvious sign that there was something wrong with me. And that's also when the whole lot of emotions came to me what actually happened. And what I've also done and this was my mistake, I take my cell phone any payments from Okay, well helos up I don't need that anymore. So, of course I have this kind of like down that type of feeling was because I took myself up all the payments. And luckily my boss is doing what? Whatever you're doing, put yourself back on the medication you need to, you need to temper everything. You don't just do that. Now, okay, okay. But that that was really the hardest time is when once you finally physically kind of looked normal again, and now you had to be normal. But you weren't yet that was pretty the hardest.

Caitlin Van Mol 40:27
While in the Halo, Johan had a lot of time to think about what he wanted to do once it came off.

Johan 40:33
I had three different goals after after all this had settled down with me and one of them was, physically I need to get back to the level that I was before. Like I said before, as a patient, you want to be normal. You don't want to be anything exceptional. You want to be normal. Well, what is your core? Right?

Caitlin Van Mol 40:51
Normal for Johan was qualifying for the Boston Marathon. The qualifying time for his age group in 2006 was three hours and 30 minutes.

Johan 41:02
And, and then my second one is I had an educational goal, I really wanted to get my doctorate in physical therapy. I did that. And it's hard to write when you start something and it's like, I'm looking at three years of going to school again, why? I just wanted to do it, just do it. Right. And then my other goal was professionally, being part of an executive team at our at our hospital, which was a little hard because there's not a lot of people other than than physicians and nurses that make it into the executive realm. MBAs maybe but but not PT. So Mike, I'm gonna do that. And so actually, that was the hardest was, was the physical way.

Caitlin Van Mol 41:45
The for the attack. Johan was an experienced marathon runner. But now he had to start training from square one. So how was taking that first run? And did that feel encouraging or discouraging?

Johan 42:02
Oh, very discouraging. So, you know, once you once you can run marathons while you don't think about running a couple of miles. And I ran, I think 20 steps, and I was exhausted. Remember, this was after the Halo was off. And I really wasn't allowed to run yet. It said no, you can't run yet. You don't tell a runner you can run. Like I gotta try 20 steps. Oh, my gosh, I'm exhausted. is terrible. But it was also motivating at the same time, like, Okay, well, we'll 40 Next tomorrow, right. And then at, so let's double this up. And let's see how far I can push this. Because Rock and Roll Marathon is coming up in June, and I better be running it because I have a streak going on. It's not gonna have to go there if they stopped me from that street. So I focused basically on having to be able to run a marathon within. Let me see, six, seven months after the ham. Okay.

Caitlin Van Mol 43:01
And you did it. I mean, oh, yeah. Most people can't run a marathon period, let alone 10 months after a bear ripped up your body.

Johan 43:12
Yeah. And then. And then I was disappointed with my time.

Caitlin Van Mol 43:15
He ran it in three hours and 39 minutes. I was disappointed

Johan 43:18
with my time because I didn't qualify from last time. And someone said to me, come on otter. Reality you're running. The fact that you're walking is wonderful, let alone that you just meant a marathon. What's your problem? Like? Okay, thank you, thank you that we are these SLAF that it was it was interesting as the LA Marathon ran around, having they had invited me they gave me their Courage Award, which was just so so nice. And but the other thing they did is they they found a coach for me in San Diego, to help me to get better, basically. And they totally helped me.

Caitlin Van Mol 43:55
His next marathon was the St. George marathon in St. George, Utah, because

Johan 44:00
downhill American, but it starts at like five or 6000 feet or something like that. So that's a whole different oxygen level. And if it gets to tell you that there's a really steep uphill thing there too. And so I needed to be under 330. And I think I made a 320 guide. Last Mile. I was like, oh, no, no, I'm not driving back from St. George to San Diego not having qualified, I need to be able to make it. And I made that which is just amazing. My wife still was like, Oh, that's a relief. Otherwise I had to sit with you and listen to you or in the whole time.

Caitlin Van Mol 44:36
The effect reading had on his mental health was well worth the pain.

Johan 44:40
I would say my running was one of my one of the two biggest therapist I had on the other therapist I had was that I actually volunteered and did some keynote speeches, big events. And just to force myself all the talk about this too, to cry in public. It's not easy. Yeah. And to have the audience cry, but it's it's, it's healing. And I use Garmin with I've told the audience before too is like, you know, thank you so much for being as engaged as you are as an audience member, because it helps me able to talk about it was able to, to verbalize it, not just to you, but also to myself really helped me cope with this. Because it's, it isn't easy. And, and what gets more difficult is that you put your daughter through something, right? And so I'm just thinking about that. So the guilt didn't really happen, right afterwards, the guilt happens later. Like, why did I do this. And then you start realizing all the things that could have gone wrong, but didn't go wrong. And you realize how much luck you had during that time as well. minutes. And that, whatever you did, was the right thing because of the outcome. And so during my running little bits became a reality is like, the reality of the false, which was pretty steep. Set in the reality of gymnasts fall in that she didn't died in that farm setting. And you you're running, and you're basically you suddenly realize that and you stop running, and you're like, oh, my gosh, this is this actually happened. And then you just focus in you're trying to work through it in your own mind, basically. And running helped me with that. And presenting in front of audiences helped me with that as well. And then to listen to the experience of other people. The audience was a therapist to me, and I was probably a therapist to some so many members in the audience that I talked to. I mean, I've had many grown men come to me sort of crying about something that happened to them. And I remember this one case, and I never cried, I never cried. Like, the worry, I just cried in public myself in front of all of you don't worry about.

Caitlin Van Mol 47:24
Yeah, it must feel so validating to have all that like reflected back.

Johan 47:29
Yeah. Oh, and I think people come to us, what do you say to that person? What do you mean, just excuses. Thanks, me. And I thanked her for being here. Oh, my gosh, she just walked away crying. And I started later on that. Either an uncle Hunkeler data first killed by a bear before and she had never talked about it. And it just thinks was just coming to the surface for people. And it makes sure that it is good to talk about these

Caitlin Van Mol 47:57
things. Johans incredible story got a ton of media attention. He was even on the Today Show. But after a while, it felt like he and Jenna were losing control of their own story.

Johan 48:10
I mean, it was just kind of a startup, the internet and social media and stuff like that. So you get some weird stuff to happening. You're like, Well, wait a minute, this is my story. This is my your story. And Jana in particular, she was more sensitive to everything. She said, I want you to know that I'm making so much money out of her story. I don't want to do it. I just don't. Okay, so you can you have a good point, right. And so we became incredibly selective in what we will do. But I'm like, you know, I need to get this out myself. And it's another way of coping in a way and I need to write my own thing. And I think it's actually it's actually an uplifting story at the, you know, and we are in need of uplifting stories we always are as a society, and just you basically sit down and you start and say, What do you start, right? I mean, of course, you start with the obvious with the attack thing, and I didn't just get there. There was life before that, too. Of course, my wife was incredible. And she helped. And, and, and she's an English teacher. I mean, she was able to house my grandma, right? It's terrible. So she helped me with that. And then I had a really good friend, Denise, who does this professionally. And I so writing it myself, and then we give it to her too. Can you can you look at this, what do you think? Am I really getting to the essence of this or not? She was totally able to help me. She got me in contact with a publisher she had worked for I was able to find someone that was going to publish it. I mean, cost money. It's not cheap. And that's at least $10,000 that you have to put out yourself and you hope that it sells enough books that you make that money back up again,

Caitlin Van Mol 49:48
JOHANNS book a grisly tale, a father and daughter survival story was published in 2006. It was very important to Johan to include the photo As of his injuries in the book,

Johan 50:01
and put pictures in there purposely, and people say you shouldn't do that, right. And actually, when I have to go to the park service, they didn't want to put it in their shops either because of the pictures. And, and so if you don't, that's fine. But that's part of the story, right? I didn't want to add on to our previous belief that nothing's gonna happen to you, you know, stuff can really happen to you in accounting really, really need to see that to get a good realization of how things can be, unfortunately, maybe I'm too much of a realist, but I think that's important, though. And it's important for all of us, but it's important to protect nature and the animals. And it's important for us as well, from the safety perspective. Jana

Caitlin Van Mol 50:49
was just about to start college when this happened. And even after the attack, she still plan to pursue a career in dance, and started

Johan 50:58
dancing again, it's just an amazing dancer. And, of course, being a dad, like, what are you gonna do a dance in your career, right, like, do something in social science in addition to her dance to, but I think she got one V in college because she couldn't get him to point in ballet. Everything else was. But anyway, see, so she graduated with with with a science degree and a bachelor's in fine arts and tried to break into dance in New York didn't work. And then what about med school? So that's what she did after that. I know. And so she med school is the fallback. Interesting, right. And she got into Columbia, and she did great. Obviously, she's now an IDI physician, and she's toxicologist, you've seen doubled board x, which is pretty amazing. Some

Caitlin Van Mol 51:52
of the reflecting Johan has done on the attack has been about how close he came to dying, but didn't

Johan 52:00
kill him. It's basically I died, right? I could have so easily got Yeah. You know, and having that, you know, way out of body kind of experience. Many things like homemade Thai, maybe I didn't touch. This was one of these with it. Because I mean, the attack was incredible. Most violent thing you could possibly go through and still listen to it. Yeah. When I also realized that that point is the death is actually it's okay. It's, it's it's actually a very gentle thing. Because again, there's no pain. And it's, it feels very peaceful. And it feels very, like, I'm peaceful, and I'm okay with this. And since then, I have actually not been afraid of death anymore. Now, I don't want to die, obviously. Right? Absolutely not. But that that fear of deaths we all have. I don't have because I know it's gonna be really peaceful. And that's an okay thing. And it's a part of life.

Caitlin Van Mol 53:06
Today, Johann is still living in San Diego, still working, and still getting up to run in what most people would call the middle of the night.

Johan 53:16
First of all, fantastic job. So but the same company, obviously. I'm actually I work with laboratorians right now. And but we have services my original field, which is pretty awesome. Jana is position. Mary's love my son in law. They have a grandchild. So it's like, CES. Like, that's awesome. No, it's just amazing. And then my younger daughter has a fantastic boyfriend. They live together in Park City. And of course, my wife just retired from teaching. It's I've lived the American dream. Let's say that because obviously I didn't you know, I wasn't born in the United States. And we are in heart. Yeah, I'm, I'm incredibly happy. And every year now I go hiking with Kim justice, who's the helicopter pilot who saved us. And so besides physically doing great, I got so many more friends as a result of what happened to me. And you can take any story and make it a negative or make it a positive. I don't live in the negative. I live in the positive. I'm just incredibly lucky. You know, I just I'm just lucky. You

Caitlin Van Mol 54:31
can get your hands book a grisly tale, a father and daughter survival story wherever books are sold. Last question. Do you miss your hair?

Johan 54:41
No. Initially, yes, absolutely not. It's so easy. Never have bad hair day. Never. Right? I just have to shave some of the patches that are still left so it's perfectly bald. They did such a beautiful job with my hair and reconstructing it. It's a medical piece of art. I will say it's like I'm showing a piece of art here and I do have to protect it during the time because I don't want sunshine to ruin it. And now I don't miss it at all.

Unknown Speaker 55:11
Even baldness suits you.

Johan 55:13
Thank you

Caitlin Van Mol 55:18
This is live to tell. I'm Caitlin van mol. You can follow the show on Instagram and Tiktok at live to tell podcast. If you enjoy today's episode, please rate review and subscribe. It really helps the show. I'll see you in two weeks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai