Man vs Beast: Half-Eaten Alive

Summary

Real Survival Stories – "Man vs Beast: Half-Eaten Alive"

Podcast: Real Survival Stories | Host: John Hopkins | Date: December 4, 2025
Episode Theme:
This gripping episode recounts the harrowing true story of Colin Dowler, an outdoorsman who survived a nearly fatal grizzly bear attack in the wilds of British Columbia in July 2019. Through first-hand narration and vivid storytelling, listeners follow Colin’s journey from route-finding in the mountains to a desperate, life-or-death fight with a powerful predator—and his incredible self-rescue against all odds.

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1. Episode Overview

Colin Dowler, a seasoned outdoorsman and father of two, sets off on a solo trip to scout a mountain named after his grandfather. Alone in remote wilderness, Colin suddenly encounters a grizzly bear. What starts as a tense standoff rapidly descends into an all-out battle for survival, with Colin sustaining horrific injuries. The story follows his improvised self-defense, his pain-racked journey for help, and his emotional and physical recovery.

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2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

A. The Prelude: Wilderness Preparation

• Scouting Mission: Colin sets out ahead of a planned climb with his brother, aiming to map a safe route up Mount Doogie Dowler. “This time my intention was not to climb the mountain, but to see if I could find reasonable access to the alpine so that when it was time to climb the mountain, we weren’t wasting your time.” (06:20 – Colin Dowler)
• Receiving Bear Spray: A camp cook gives Colin bear spray and a lift part way. They joke about wilderness dangers: “He took a picture of me and laughed. ‘This one’s for the milk carton, in case you don’t return.’” (07:38 – Colin Dowler)

B. Encounter with the Bear

• Missing Bear Spray: On his return, Colin discovers his bear spray is gone, heightening his vulnerability. (14:26–14:42)
• Initial Sighting: Colin sees a grizzly blocking the road just kilometers from his boat. “75 or 100ft in front of me, there was a grizzly bear standing on the road.” (16:41 – Colin Dowler)
• Attempted Deterrence: He tries shooing the bear with noise and his hiking pole, but the bear is undeterred and approaches with curiosity and escalating aggression:
  • “I pushed a little bit right... Didn’t want him to be angry. He rolled his head and bit the pole and we tugged... then he let go of the pole and started to focus on me again.” (22:34 – Colin Dowler)
  • Offers his backpack as distraction, to no effect. (22:49–22:59)

C. The Violent Attack

• The Assault: The bear lunges at Colin, slamming him to the ground and biting through his midsection.
  • “I took my bike and I threw it at him out of desperation... then he lunged at me. This was all super slow motion.” (24:11 – Colin Dowler)
  • “So I'm hanging upside down in this bear's jaws, thinking to myself, oh man, like I am in trouble here.” (25:21 – Colin Dowler)
• Attempts to Fight Back: Colin tries eye gouging but the bear’s head is too wide. His desperation becomes overwhelming:
  • “I thought to myself, I have to start fighting back here... I tried to double eye gouge him, but his head was too wide... so I thought I’ll just go for one eye, I guess.” (26:11 – Colin Dowler)
  • “I remember, you know, yelling, ‘Why?’ and ‘Stop.’ And I was just beside myself. I couldn't think of anything else I could do. I remember feeling like, really ashamed...because my wife definitely didn’t want me to go on this trip.” (29:02 – Colin Dowler)

D. The Turning Point: The Knife

• Weapon of Last Resort: Remembering his 2-inch pocketknife, Colin, pinned and nearly unconscious, manages to retrieve it.
  • “I didn't have the strength to pull my right arm through... so I pulled with my right and pushed with my left and pushed my hand into my gut to get under the pressure of the bear laying on me.” (31:14 – Colin Dowler)
• Critical Blow: He stabs the bear multiple times in the neck, finally striking a fatal wound:
  • “And while I was thinking all these thoughts, giant gush of blood came spewing out of his neck. And I said aloud at that point, ‘Now you're bleeding too, bear.’” (33:14 – Colin Dowler)
• Bear Retreats: The bear staggers off, leaving Colin critically injured, but alive. He fashions tourniquets from his shirt sleeves. (34:37)

E. Ordeal to Reach Help

• Self-Rescue: Bleeding heavily, with a useless left leg, Colin attempts to cycle 7 km back to camp.
  • “I want to get away from this bear because I don't know where he is... So I decided that I would try to get on my bike and ride back to the Lardon camp.” (35:55 – Colin Dowler)
• Physical Collapse: He repeatedly falls and pushes himself to continue:
  • “Went to pedal and take my first push off and immediately fell off the other side of my bike and face planted... So I just told myself, you got to suck it up and dig deep.” (36:43 – Colin Dowler)
• Sheer Determination: He powers the bike one-legged, fighting excruciating pain.
  • “My small man's complex is win the bombers never give up. So I just kept pedaling. I told myself, Colin, you need to focus on breathing and keeping your foot on the pedal.” (40:34 – Colin Dowler)

F. Rescue, Recovery, and Reflection

• Collapse at Camp: He crashes into the logging camp, yells for help, and is immediately tended to by shocked loggers.
  • “I rolled in and I crashed into the deck... I yelled, ‘help.’” (41:32 – Colin Dowler)
• Phone Calls: The loggers help him call his wife and family, fearing it may be his last chance.
  • “They didn’t say ‘hey, it’s your last chance to say goodbye’ but pretty certain that’s what was going through their mind.” (42:49 – Colin Dowler)
• Medical Evacuation: Air ambulance paramedics give him a blood transfusion. “...told me that I was lucky they had the blood on board system because without it I probably wouldn’t make it back to the hospital alive.” (45:00 – Colin Dowler)
• Physical & Emotional Recovery: Months of rehabilitation follow, punctuated by frequent emotional turmoil and trauma reminders.
  • “Six months later I went, you know, from crying daily to maybe only crying several times a week. So now I'm at a stage where, you know, I only get really emotional about it when I'm talking about it.” (46:49 – Colin Dowler)
  • Lingering nerve damage and psychological scars persist.
• Bear's Fate: Conservation officers track and euthanize the bear. Standard after an unprovoked attack. (47:42)
• Reflection on Survival:
  • “Has it made me stronger? I don’t think so. Has it given me purpose in the present moment? For sure... I know that my body's not going to last as long as I'd predicted. So it's like now's the time to climb mountains.” (48:22 – Colin Dowler)
  • “When I was being mauled by the bear, it was more about... how I used to dig deep when I was competing in high school on endurance runs... in that survival moment... it was just focusing on, like, digging deep to have the stamina to persevere, to survive.” (48:59 – Colin Dowler)

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3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I thought, well, I'll just go for one eye, I guess... grip his ear and fur and stab him in the eye... so hard that there was no way I could be defeated or he could handle that pain.” (26:11 – Colin Dowler)
• “Now you're bleeding too, bear.” (33:14 – Colin Dowler) – A moment of raw triumph shouted as the grizzly finally releases him.
• “So I just told myself, you got to suck it up and dig deep.” (36:43 – Colin Dowler) – Shows Colin’s relentless mindset.
• “My small man's complex is win the bombers never give up. So I just kept paddling. I told myself, Colin, you need to focus on breathing and keeping your foot on the pedal.” (40:34 – Colin Dowler)
• “If I don't make it out here alive, I think I killed a grizzly bear with my knife...” (43:18 – Colin Dowler, to his brother)
• “Has it made me stronger? I don’t think so. Has it given me purpose in the present moment? For sure... now's the time to climb mountains.” (48:22 – Colin Dowler)
• “I am constantly reminded... I'm reminded every mole by bear. Right. And you know, it doesn't take much of a movement for the wounds to act up.” (46:49 – Colin Dowler)

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4. Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |---------|-------------|-----------| | Introduction & Colin’s Background | Host sets the scene; Colin’s upbringing & motivations | 00:33 – 12:57 | | Start of the Expedition | Arrival, pepper spray, and route finding | 06:05 – 14:42 | | The Bear Encounter | First sighting, escalation, attempted deterrence | 16:41 – 23:04 | | The Attack | Bear charges and mauls Colin, initial fightback | 24:11 – 33:14 | | Wounding the Bear & Aftermath | Using the knife, bear retreats, Colin’s injuries | 33:14 – 34:59 | | Ordeal to Get Help | Makes makeshift tourniquets, cycles to camp | 35:05 – 41:32 | | Rescue & Hospital | Loggers respond, airlift, treatment and reflection | 41:32 – 45:29 | | Recovery & Aftermath | Physical/emotional recovery, bear’s fate, lessons | 46:01 – 49:45 |

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5. Episode Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: Authentic, intense, and deeply personal. Colin’s humor, vulnerability, and fortitude fuse with the show’s immersive, dramatic narration for an emotionally charged listen.
• Key Takeaways:
  • Preparation saves lives, but improvisation is equally vital when all else fails.
  • The will to "dig deep"—mentally and physically—can mean the difference between life and death.
  • Survival leaves lasting marks, both visible and invisible, but also brings acute appreciation for life.

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[Listen to "Real Survival Stories" for more astonishing first-hand survival accounts.]

Transcript

[Colin Dowler]

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[Narrator]

It's July 2019 in southwest Canada, near the coast of British Columbia. An unpaved road cuts a narrow path through the pines. Tall grass grows along the verge and sprouts through cracks in the thinning gravel.

At first glance, you'd assume that nobody had come down this way in years. Forgotten logging road slowly being reclaimed by the forest.

But on closer inspection, it seems somebody has been here recently. A walker by the looks of it. A discarded backpack rests among the weeds and wildflowers over there. A hiking pole, slightly bent and badly scratched, lies in the dirt there, a scrap of torn clothing. And on the overgrown verge some 50ft further up the road, a pool of blood turns dark in the afternoon sun.

Clearly something dreadful has happened here. A short distance away, another drop of blood stains the ground. Then another and another. It forms a trail. Crimson flecks dripped along the road, leading in the direction of the shore.

Down to where 44 year old Colin Dowler is pedaling for his life.

[Colin Dowler]

Each little rise I came over, each corner I went around, I'm thinking, man, I've been pedaling for so long, that's got to be where I get to the hill, where I can coast out of here. Because I'm not sure how much longer I can do this.

[Narrator]

Colin's bicycle weaves down the road, his legs struggling to maintain enough momentum to keep him upright. Blood trickles from his thighs and midriff. His face is ashen gray. This road leads to the coast, where help hopefully awaits. It has to. Without it, Colin won't survive the hour.

As he pedals, he glances over his shoulder, heart thumping. Has the creature followed him?

Nothing.

He looks forward again, fingers squeezing the handlebars, his teeth gritted, his jaw clenched. But he isn't making enough progress. He's moving too slowly.

[Colin Dowler]

I look up and I see the 5 kilometer sign, which meant I'd only made it halfway to the hill that I needed to get to to Coast Town, and my spirit sank at that point. Oh man. Like probably only halfway. There's no Way I'm gonna make it.

[Narrator]

Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

In this episode, we meet Colin Dowler. In July 2019. The father of two is exploring the rugged natural beauty around Mount Doogie Dowla on the southwest coast of Canada. After a night camping in the forest, Colin is cycling back to the boat landing, heading for home, when an unexpected obstacle appears in the road up ahead. A wild, dangerous animal that nobody wants to run into in these parts. And so a tense, terrifying, drawn out encounter commences.

[Colin Dowler]

It started to seem like it was just a producer and I blocked it with my bike. And then, you know, another little swat and I blocked it with my bike. And getting into the fourth or maybe sixth one, they were getting more aggressive. And then he came down, he lunged at me. This was all super slow motion.

[Narrator]

In the blink of an eye, Colin will find himself on the wrong side of an unfair fight, thrust into a deadly struggle against one of the animal kingdom's most powerful beasts.

[Colin Dowler]

The next thing I know, I've been spun 180 and I'm on my back and my shoulders thinking to myself, oh man, like I am in trouble here. And then I remember that I have a knife in my pocket.

[Narrator]

I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Real Survival Stories.

It's Sunday, July 28, 2019. A motorboat navigates an intricate maze of inlets and fjords, the shattered mosaic of islands that comprises Canada's coastal southwest.

Sitting with his bearded face tilted into the Sun, 44 year old Colin Dowler carefully guides his vessel through the channels.

The surface of his wraparound shades reflects a ribbon of snow capped mountains looming above the shoreline. He breathes in the fresh sea air and smiles, feeling the motion of his boat as it slaps over the gentle chop.

Colin is on a route finding mission. He and his brother have made plans to climb a mountain on the mainland, but due to how wild and unspoiled this region is, he decided it would be a good idea to scope out the area first.

[Colin Dowler]

This time my intention was not to climb the mountain, but to see if I could find reasonable access to the alpine so that when it was time to climb the mountain, we weren't wasting your time.

[Narrator]

Colin steers into a sheltered cove. He ties up to a wooden dock, hoists his mountain bike out of the boat and wheels it along the jetty. When he reaches the top of the beach, he gets on his bike and pedals into the forest, following a gravel road through the pines.

After a little while he reaches a logging camp, a collection of metal roofed sheds with stacks of lumber piled outside.

He gets off his bike and approaches one of the loggers, an older man who turns out to be the camp cook.

Colin explains that he's looking for a path up to the mountains and asks the man if he knows of any viable routes.

The cook sizes him up.

It's pretty rough country up there, but if he's determined to go ahead with it, then he'll help him out. The cook hands him some pepper spray, always useful in these parts, and then offers to give him a lift, at least some of the way.

Colin thanks the old man and loads his bike into the back of his truck.

[Colin Dowler]

He drove me about 9km until he couldn't push the truck any further because there was too many trees and too much underbrush in the way. So it was tighter bush than I'd expected. So he dropped me off. I thanked him. He took a picture of me and laughed. This one's for the milk cartons, in case you don't return.

[Narrator]

Colin grins for the camera before the old man wishes him well and drives off.

The cook's parting joke would likely freak most people out, but Colin laughs it off. After all, he grew up in these parts. This landscape is woven into his DNA.

Colin spent his early years on nearby Quadra Island, a sparsely inhabited outcrop sandwiched between Vancouver island to the west and the mainland to the east.

[Colin Dowler]

I grew up on an island. There was a little more than a thousand full time residents. We didn't have cable television, of course, there was no computers. I mean, there was the odd one I guess, in the late 80s. Certainly no Internet. He's my closest friend, as in physically closest friend was about a kilometer away.

[Narrator]

Back then you made your own fun. For young Colin, that meant exploring the local beaches and creeks, dragging his mountain bike all over the little corner of the island. With its long, punishing winters and reliance on traditional industries like fishing and logging, this part of British Columbia breeds a tough, resilient sort. Scrappy and hard wearing, Colin is not likely to back down from a fight, even when the odds aren't in his favor. He attributes this in part to his relatively diminutive stature.

[Colin Dowler]

I sincerely think that it comes from me being so small and always trying to keep up with the big boys. I mean, I had no place being on the grade 12 rugby team, but I was 108 pounds, 5 foot 7, you know, playing rugby, I don't know, I just tried to keep up. It wasn't until I was doing a first year psych course at UBC that I realized that I had small man's complex, or as I like to refer, littleitis.

[Narrator]

Defying expectations would become a habit. After finishing high school, Colin went off to university in Vancouver with dreams of one day becoming a physical therapist. But it turned out that academic life wasn't for him at university.

[Colin Dowler]

It was a bunch of young people. Nobody really seemed to know what they were going to do or where they were going. It seemed like I was working my way towards a desk job, which was about the last thing in life that I wanted.

[Narrator]

So Colin dropped out of university, but he didn't go home to the island straight away. With some money saved and an uncertain future to ponder, he boarded a train south for Mexico.

[Colin Dowler]

I actually went traveling. I did a solo backpacking trip, this would be about 1995, and got on a train down to Guadalajara, Mexico. And then I backpacked and took buses and cabs into Guatemala and Honduras, then flew back to New Orleans and took a bus home. So that was kind of like my soul searching trip. And on that trip I decided that I'd become an electrician. That's what I did.

[Narrator]

Colin eventually settled in Campbell river on Vancouver Island, a town of about 40,000 just over the water from where he grew up. He got married, had kids and built a good life for himself and his family. Being an electrician kept him on his feet while still affording him plenty of time to fish, hike and climb at weekends. But things change. Colin ended up getting a job as maintenance and operations manager for a healthcare authority, a far more desk bound role. And now he is feeling the effects.

[Colin Dowler]

I'd been getting out of shape because now I've been working a desk job for about four years like I never wanted to do. And I was in my 20s and I found that I was just in the worst shape of my life and I was no longer able to go from couch to adventure on the weekends.

[Narrator]

So when he got a call one afternoon from his brother suggesting the two of them go off and summit a local peak, Colin didn't hesitate. Mount Doogie Dowla is located on the mainland, but at nearly 7,000ft, it's visible from all the islands in the surrounding area.

It's distinctively shaped with a wide flat summit and steep sides that abruptly flatten out at the base. From a distance it's easy to see why some people call it the cowboy's hat, it really does resemble one. But for Colin Dowler, the mountain's official name has special resonance. It's named after his grandfather, Doogie, who used to run a convenience store on Quadra island with a view over the mountain.

[Colin Dowler]

When he died in 83, some of the community members thought it'd be fitting to name a mountain that was in view of the grocery store after him. And so they went through the process. It was an unnamed mountain. They applied to have it named after him. And so it became.

[Narrator]

This will not be a straightforward trip, and Colin's wife, Jen has some serious reservations. But she's always been supportive of her husband's need to quench his thirst for adventure. With its sheer rock walls, climbing Mount Doogie Dowler is difficult enough, but even reaching the base is a challenge. After landing by boat, climbers must push through miles of tangled forest. It's a punishing approach, which is why Colin came out this weekend to scout a way through. When he returns with his brother in a few days time, they'll already have a route mapped out.

After the cook drops him off, Colin cycles as far as he can before parking his bike and continuing on foot. He bushwhacks his way through the forest, hacking at the undergrowth with his hiking poles. Eventually, he finds a shallow creek, which he follows upstream. He's getting closer to the base of the mountain, probably just a few kilometers off, when he decides to stop for the night. The sun is going down, and there are things in this forest you don't want to encounter. After dark, Colin pitches up in a sheltered clearing. He unrolls his bivy bag and sparks up his camping stove. As the light dwindles, he reaches for the pepper spray the cook gave him earlier.

But it's not there. He roots around in his pack, emptying all the pockets. No luck. The canister must have fallen out at some point along the way. Colin sighs and shakes his head.

His eyes shift across to the forest. The shadows between the trees morph into dark shapes. Leering and snarling, he looks away. Better get some sleep.

The next day, Colin wakes to the sound of birdsong. It's another beautiful morning. His clearing is flooded with bright, warm sunshine.

Satisfied, he now has a good route to the mountain mapped out, he packs up his things and starts making his way back through the forest, heading to where he left his bike yesterday.

[Colin Dowler]

Descended back down through the bush. I stopped and looked for my pepper spray where I thought it was most likely to have fallen out of my pocket maybe a half an hour looking for it. Ultimately decided it was a needle in a haystack, so carried on down the trail.

[Narrator]

As he walks, Colin deliberately makes a racket.

He thwacks tree trunks with his hiking poles and belts out a stream of nonsense. Good practice in these parts, you know.

[Colin Dowler]

The odd scream and just letting animals know that I'm in the area. Because when you can't see 20ft in front of you, you kind of want to warn things that you're coming.

[Narrator]

Colin pushes his bike through the bush back towards the logging road near to where the cook dropped him off yesterday.

[Colin Dowler]

At that point, I kind of felt relieved that all right, awesome, got my bike. You know, maybe a half hour from the boat only puts me a few hours from home. This is great. It's my birthday tomorrow, so I'm gonna see what I can talk my wife and kids into doing for my birthday, maybe get home, have a couple of beers and then kidnap the family for a day of fishing.

[Narrator]

He might be turning 45, but there is a childlike spring in his step as he wheels his bike onto the logging road and hops into the saddle.

[Colin Dowler]

Cruising down the road at a decent speed. I was on a flat stretch and I looked up to my right. I saw the seven kilometer sign, which means that you're seven kilometers from the end of the road, which ends where my boat is. I looked up the sign and I looked back down and 75 or 100ft in front of me, there was a grizzly bear standing on the road. Foreign.

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[Narrator]

It's July 29, 2019, near the coast of British Columbia. Colin Dowler brakes hard, bringing his mountain bike skidding to a halt.

There, standing on all fours on the forest lined path in front of him, is a hulking grizzly bear. It must be at least 400 pounds or roughly 180 kilos.

An adolescent male, not fully grown, but already big and powerful, with a wide furry face and a pair of narrow set eyes fixed firmly on Colin.

[Colin Dowler]

The bear didn't just run off, which is my experience with black bears. So as the bear's standing there looking at me, I thought, oh man, it's not taking off. I could turn and try riding away. Might have been taught that's not a good idea because basically if you run from a bear, they're going to close in on you.

[Narrator]

Best to just stay calm. But as Colin stands there rooted to the spot, willing the bear to slink off into the trees, the animal doesn't seem at all frightened. It seems curious.

Slowly the grizzly approaches, rolling its shoulders like a prize fighter as it walks a slow lolloping gate.

Its snout is low to the ground, twitching, inhaling human pheromones. When it comes within 30ft of him, Colin tries a different approach. He steps off his bike and carefully slides a hiking pole out of his backpack.

He bangs it against the handlebars, hoping to scare the animal off.

[Colin Dowler]

And at that point he skittered on all four paws. And I could hear his claws scratch in the dirt and skittered nervously. And then he paused for a second or two and then slowly started approaching again. At this point, I'm going to suggest that I had lost all confidence and bravado that I thought I had in nature and with wild animals.

[Narrator]

Now the bear is close enough for Colin to make out the details. The small amber eyes, the long curled claws scraping against the surface of the road, the string of saliva dangling from its vast lower jaw.

[Colin Dowler]

I remember thinking, man, I wish I was filming this because nobody's going to believe I was this close to a grizzly. And I honestly thought he was just going to walk right by.

[Narrator]

The grizzly is now within touching distance. He can smell it. A skunky, putrid odor like a wet dog, but far more intense.

Colin holds his breath as the bear slopes past him.

[Colin Dowler]

And it lowered his head and if I recall correctly, sort of flattened his ears too. It reminded me of a shy dog. Like it didn't seem aggressive, it seemed, you know, timid. And he walked. He was almost all the way past me. And then when he was almost past my bike, he did a 180 degree turn.

[Narrator]

Colin hurriedly repositions his bike between himself and the animal. He can see the heat rising from its shaggy coat. The steam huffing from its open mouth. The wet shine on its pink gums. A flash of yellow teeth.

He can fully take in its size too. The bear seems to take up the entire road. Its thick brown fur gives it a rounded appearance, barrel shaped. Every sinew is primed and tensed, coiled, ready to spring. The grizzly eyes Colin with a primal hostility. It's as if the animal has mistaken the human for a rival. Or maybe it's just hungry. Either way, Colin needs to do something to alter the course of this escalating situation. His heart galloping, he extends his hiking pole and presses the tip firmly against the flat of the bear's head just above the eyes.

[Colin Dowler]

Pushed a little bit right. I didn't want to do anything aggressive because I just wanted to leave me alone. Didn't want him to be angry. He rolled his head and bit the pole and we tugged a ward for maybe a second and he let go of the pole and started to focus on me again.

[Narrator]

With trembling hands, Colin unclips his backpack and tosses it onto the ground.

Maybe the food in there will distract the bear.

But it doesn't. The grizzly only has eyes for Colin.

[Colin Dowler]

He started prodding at me with his right claw, I guess. And it started to seem like it was just a prod. And I blocked it with my bike. And then, you know, another little swat and I blocked it with my bike. And getting into the fourth or maybe sixth one, they were getting more aggressive.

[Narrator]

Colin flinches as another powerful right hook narrowly misses his head. A single clean impact from one of those bollard sized forelimbs could crush his skull. He shields himself with his bike. The lightweight metallic frame a pathetic defense against this apex predator. But it's all he's got. He ducks again as the grizzly takes another swat.

Now Colin watches in horror as the bear raises its hackles. The fur on the back of its wide neck standing on end, bristling and shimmering. It's his final warning. There is only one direction this is headed. If he doesn't do something now to repel the grizzly and he is done for.

[Colin Dowler]

I took my bike and I threw it at him out of desperation. And I remember seeing his arms through the a frame of my bike. And then he came down. He lunged at me. This was all super slow motion.

[Narrator]

It happens in a fraction of a second. And yet everything seems to slow down through the frame of his bike. Colin sees the bear propel itself forward, its head twisted slightly to one side, its jaw open, fangs bared.

The bike disappears, flung aside like a twig. In the next instant, he is hit by an explosive bone, shuddering force. And suddenly he's on his back.

His senses are overwhelmed by the violence of it. The grizzly's hard, muscular head rammed into his midriff. The overpowering stench of its hot breath. The soft warm fur spilling around him.

There is a sharp popping sensation as the bear's teeth puncture his stomach. Then he feels himself being lifted off the ground.

[Colin Dowler]

So I'm hanging upside down, this bear's jaws, thinking to myself, oh man, like I am in trouble here. And my main thoughts were that if he drags me off into the bush, I would go for sure.

[Narrator]

The bear carries Colin 40ft down the road before dropping him. He lands face down on the verge as the animal goes in for another bite. In the chaos, Colin tries to gather his senses. Grizzlies often kill their prey by forcing them into submission, crushing them with the weight of their massive bodies, then biting and mauling until the fight is over before it's begun. Collins assailant, however, appears to be taking its time, toying with its prey before finishing it off.

But he isn't going to go down easily.

[Colin Dowler]

I thought to myself, I have to start fighting back here. What are we going to do? But I'd go for a double eye gouge move like in the movies. And I tried to double eye gouge him, but his head was too wide for me to reach as far as I. So I thought, well, I'll just go for one eye, I guess. Into my mind I was going to grip his ear and fur and stab him in the eye and hold my thumb in there so hard that there was like no way I could be defeated or he could handle that pain.

[Narrator]

Colin moves fast, still on his front. He twists his torso as far as he can and throws out his right hand, grabbing the bear's ear and jamming his thumb hard into its eye socket.

The bear thunders out a roar, blood and saliva flying from its jaws.

[Colin Dowler]

The next moment's a blur. The next thing I know, I've been spun 180 and I'm on my back and my shoulders trying to bicycle kick this bear off me while he's corralling my legs with his paws.

[Narrator]

Now the grizzly rears up and throws its full weight down on top of its victim.

In the thrashing madness, Colin suddenly finds himself bizarrely trapped. His head squeezed between the bear's hindquarters.

[Colin Dowler]

I'm pinned under his elbow. So picture his left elbow in my gut with his haunches wrapped up around near my head. And he's biting into my upper thigh near my groin.

His face pressed into.

[Narrator]

The warm fur of the bear's underbelly. Colin kicks, flails and thrashes, but the grizzly is undeterred.

[Colin Dowler]

He bit in bite and then let go fully and lift his head up and then bite in again. Let go fully and lift his head up. And with each of these bites, he's doing a small shake to penetrate his teeth fully, I assume. And he did that maybe four or five times and finally settled in. And this is the first moment that I felt sincere pain.

[Narrator]

As the adrenaline wears off, the pain becomes excruciating.

In frantic desperation, he reaches up and tries to prise the bear's jaws apart with his fingers.

[Colin Dowler]

I guess it bugged him enough that he actually let go of my lap point, bit my hand, and then he moved down my leg a little ways. And now he's closer to my knee and continuing to dig in. I didn't realize it at the time, but at this point, he's like, actually starting to eat me alive.

And I remember, you know, yelling, why? And stop. And I was just beside myself. I couldn't think of anything else I could do. I remember feeling, like, really ashamed is probably the word, right? Because my wife definitely didn't want me to go on this trip. You know, I'd never seen that level of concern.

For her saying bye to me before I went on one of these missions. So I just felt bad that I was abandoned. Jen and my family.

And then I remembered that I had a knife in my pocket.

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[Narrator]

Farmington in the coastal forest of British Columbia, a near 400 pound grizzly bear is in the final stages of a kill as the life bleeds slowly out of its prey. But Colin Dowler isn't giving up.

Inside his trouser pocket is a short 2 inch hunting knife. It could be his last recourse if only he could reach it.

[Colin Dowler]

I didn't have the strength to pull my right arm through to get to my pocket with the weight of the bear on me. So I pulled with my right and pushed with my left and pushed my hand into my gut as far as I could to kind of get under the pressure of the bear laying on me.

[Narrator]

Colin wriggles the knife from his pocket, flicks out the blade and pulls it across his body where he has more maneuverability with his left arm. As he yanks the knife across the other way, he can feel the blade cutting into the bear's underbelly. But it barely penetrates through the fatty layer of flesh beneath the fur.

If he's going to deliver a fatal blow, he's going to have to choose his spot.

[Colin Dowler]

And I thought man, I need to line this up more precision. So from maybe 10 inches away, lined up a stab with his neck. In my mind I'm just gonna stab him and like really rapid stabs and yeah, stab him as many times as possible, try to kill the bear.

[Narrator]

Colin has seen what happens when the bear gets angry. He won't get a second chance. He'll have to make this one opportunity count.

He grips the knife tightly and holds out his left arm lining up his shot. Then with all the concentration he can muster, he slams his fist into the grizzly's neck, plunging the short blade as deep as it'll go. He pulls his hand away and brings it down again hard, repeatedly stabbing the same spot. In a frenzy of adrenaline fueled desperation.

The bear jerks its head up. Colin goes to stab again, then hesitates. It's not clear if his attack has worked or if the grizzly is just repositioning for another bite.

Colin could lash out again, but there's a danger he wouldn't do any damage and simply make the bear more furious.

[Colin Dowler]

And while I was thinking all these thoughts, giant gush of blood came spewing out of his neck. And I said aloud at that point, now you're bleeding too bear. So clearly I was charged with adrenaline. And then he got right up off me and he walked around me and each time I moved he would turn and look at me, so I was trying to keep an eye on him but move as little as possible.

[Narrator]

Colin keeps his eyes fixed on the bear as it staggers into the road. It walks over to his bike, sniffs, then starts slowly walking back towards him, an unbroken stream of blood pouring from the wound in its neck.

Colin lies still, playing dead.

[Colin Dowler]

I'm seeing now that the blood is starting to slow down and I'm laying there looking at him and thinking oh would you just die? And he wasn't falling over and I thought, man, I think I'm dying here so I need to forget about this bear and start worrying about myself.

[Narrator]

With the bear now off of him, Colin lifts his head and glances down at his own injuries. It's not a pretty sight.

Grimacing, he takes his blood stained knife and cuts off the sleeves of his hiking shirt. Then he fashions them into tourniquets for each thigh, trying to stem the bleeding. This done, he turns to check on the bear.

But it's gone. A thin trickle of blood trails off into the trees.

One part of the ordeal seems to be over, at least for now.

[Colin Dowler]

So that was a relief. I took a moment, I laid back and I thought what am I going to do next? I thought, well, do I wait for a logging vehicle to be coming down the road?

[Narrator]

But what if nobody comes? What then?

Colin has no cell phone service and even if he did, would an air ambulance reach him in time? He needs urgent medical attention and for that he needs to get himself down to the logging camp 7km back down the road. His only hope is his bike.

Cycling in his condition is clearly ill advised. Even with the Torna case, he's losing blood. The movement of pedaling would only make him bleed out faster. But he can't stay here.

[Colin Dowler]

I want to get away from this bear because I don't know where he is and last I'd seen him he's still alive. So I decided that I would try to get on my bike and ride back to the Lardon camp. If I didn't make it all the way, at least I'd be away from this bear and I'd get found by one of the crew tracks.

[Narrator]

Colin drags himself across the gravel on his elbows. He picks up one of his hiking poles, tries to pull himself to his feet but it immediately collapses under his weight.

Lying in the dust, he tries again, all gritted teeth and grim faced resolve. This time he manages to get himself upright.

He picks up his bike and throws one leg over the saddle, went to.

[Colin Dowler]

Pedal and take my first push off and immediately fell off the other side of my bike and face planted. And it was pretty desperate moment. You know, man, I'm in trouble here. So I just told myself, you got to suck it up and dig deep.

[Narrator]

Calling gets back on the bike. Fighting to ignore the rolling bombardment of pain, he pushes off and starts pedaling as hard as he can, trying to gather momentum.

His left leg is so severely damaged he can barely feel it, let alone pedal with it. Using his hands, he holds his left foot onto the pedal and just lets it rest there, motionless while he powers the other one with his right.

And in this way, pedaling one footed and lurching from side to side, he makes slow, agonizing progress down the road.

Here the road is flat. At some stage the terrain should drop into a hill that he'll be able to coast down all the way to the bottom. That moment can't come soon enough.

For now he slogs on, dripping blood, sweat stinging his eyes.

After what feels like an eternity, he reaches a distance mark in the road. But it's not what he wants to see.

[Colin Dowler]

I look up and I see the five kilometer sign, which meant I'd only made it halfway to the hill that I needed to get to to Coast Town, and my spirit sank at that point. I thought, oh man, like I'm only halfway, there's no way I'm gonna make it.

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[Narrator]

Colin sits hunched forward over the handlebars of his bike, his skin as pale as a cadaver, dark, thick blood saturating the fabric of his ripped clothes.

The gravel ground stretches out ahead of him. He needs to make it a few more kilometers to keep fighting. With his left leg no longer functioning, he relies entirely on his right. He pushes his foot onto the pedal once more and heaves off.

[Colin Dowler]

My small man's complex is when the bombers never give up. So I just kept paddling. I told myself, colin, you need to focus on breathing and keeping your foot on the pedal.

[Narrator]

If his foot slips off, he puts it right back on again and keeps forging forwards, somehow growing weaker by the second. He reaches the hill just 3km from the logging camp at the end of the road. Almost there.

He coasts down it, willing himself to stay awake as the agony and the blood loss tug at his consciousness, blurring his field of vision.

Finally, Colin rounds a corner and there, up ahead, is the logging camp.

He speeds down the rest of the way, skidding into camp and careening into the side of a wooden loading platform.

[Colin Dowler]

I rolled in and I crashed into the deck. It's about, you know, two, maybe four steps and I crashed into that and it just went with my plan. I yelled, help.

[Narrator]

Several loggers burst out of the door of the cabin when they see this mangled cyclist. They freeze, then issue a few shocked expletives. Colin manages to spit out a few words to explain the situation. The loggers snap out of their horrified daze. They carefully lift him inside the cabin, where they start tending to him as best they can with their basic first aid supplies.

With shaky, panicked hands, somebody cuts Colin out of his clothes, revealing the full extent of the bite wounds to his abdomen.

[Colin Dowler]

I knew they found something serious because they were trying to not let me know what they'd found. Didn't do a great job but anyhow I didn't ask about it. I just knew that it was bad.

[Narrator]

The loggers tie new tourniquets and apply pressure to try and stop the bleeding.

After assuring Colin that an air ambulance has been called, somebody hands him a cell phone and asks if there are any calls he'd like to make.

[Colin Dowler]

Pretty sure they were having me call people because they didn't.

They didn't say hey, it's your last chance to say goodbye but pretty certain that's what was going through their mind. So anyhow, I called my wife, Jim.

[Narrator]

But there's no answer. He tries phoning his dad but again no answer. Finally Colin rings his elder brother.

[Colin Dowler]

I got through to him and had the most awkward 5 or 10 minute conversation I had in my life. I don't really remember the phone call much but I tried explaining to him that like if I don't make it out here alive I think I killed a grizzly bear with my knife, right? So there's wanted him to know anyhow. Then the guys were asking who else we could call. It's kind of out of, you know, out ideas so told them they could call my boss and tell him that I won't be in on Monday.

[Narrator]

The loggers are doing their best to keep Colin's spirits up, reassuring him that everything will be okay and that help is coming. But at this point he doesn't have much fight left.

[Colin Dowler]

I felt myself slipping away into, I don't know, it was a pretty blissful place to be honest. There was no fear or sorrow, remorse, anything. It just felt like all my problems in life were going away.

And then I heard the helicopter off in the distance.

[Narrator]

As he slips into a foggy semi conscious state, Colin listens to the distant dreamlike hum of the helicopter coming into land.

Then a team of paramedics rush in.

They kneel down next to him in their navy overalls and start expertly getting to work. They apply dressings to his wounds and insert needles into his collapsed veins, administering an emergency blood transfusion.

[Colin Dowler]

And remember as they were checking over me, he told me that I was lucky that they had the blood on board system because without it I probably wouldn't make it back to the hospital alive. And I thought to myself, I'm gonna live because you wouldn't say something like that to someone that was gonna die.

[Narrator]

Hours later, Colin lies in a hospital bed dosed up on painkillers. Surrounded by the smiling, tearful faces of his family.

Having been helicoptered over to Vancouver island, medics quickly got to work to treat his brutal injuries. Colin suffered over 50 puncture wounds to his legs and abdomen. But the emergency surgery was a success. His wounds have been stitched up and now he can turn his attention to recovery.

It's a long, long process but bit by bit he will get better.

[Colin Dowler]

It was almost exactly four months later that my final wound completely healed. Over was skimmed and January I was walking with poles and I could walk probably 3km fairly easily. And I remember trying to run in January and I couldn't run two steps right like my coordination wasn't there, like I would fall on my face if I tried.

[Narrator]

But his balance does come back soon. He is indeed running again then hiking and climbing. As for his emotional recovery, that takes longer.

[Colin Dowler]

Six months later I went, you know, from crying daily to maybe only crying several times a week. So now I'm at a stage where, you know, I only get really emotional about it when I'm talking about it. It's not as ever present today as it was two years ago but it's constant, right. I am constantly reminded, maybe not every step I take but it's almost every step I take. I'm reminded every mold by bear. Right. And you know, it doesn't take much of a movement for the wounds to act up. There's a lot of nerve damage and stuff. So yeah. How do I reflect on it? I don't know, it's odd, still sits with me. I, I don't even understand the depth of the trauma or is. It's a tough adjustment.

[Narrator]

In the aftermath of the attack, Colin is questioned by a conservation officer who takes down the details of the bear that almost killed him. The animal is later tracked and put down. Standard procedure following an attack.

Turns out Colin was in many ways lucky.

The grizzly was Indeed a near 400 pound adolescent male. Had he run into it a few years later, the beast would have been a prime alpha, a six or seven hundred pounder and he wouldn't have stood a chance.

When he looks back on his ordeal, Colin's feelings are mixed.

[Colin Dowler]

Has it made me stronger? I don't think so. Has it given me purpose in the present moment? For sure because well, for instance I've summited 53 mountains since I was mauled and I mean I only started four years ago because I had to recover for a couple of years. I know that my body's not going to last as long as I'd predicted. So it's like now's the time to climb mountains.

[Narrator]

And as for his remarkable survival, Colin says it came down to a determination and perseverance that started from a young.

[Colin Dowler]

Age when I was being mauled by the bear. It was more about, you know, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth and about how I used to dig deep when I was competing in high school on endurance runs. And I even thought maybe not at the moment, but after how funny it was that in the survival moment like that I was actually reflecting back on high school. It was just focusing on, like, digging deep to have the stamina to persevere, to survive.

[Narrator]

Next time.

So many tales of survival end with a helicopter crew swooping in to bail out those in peril. But what happens when that crew becomes the ones in need of Rescue? In 1996, Sergeant Scott McCoy, as part of a search and rescue team, called out to assist a fisherman in a critical condition. But as they approach the Arctic archipelago, their helicopter suddenly runs into trouble over the freezing waters of the Labrador Sea. As they careen towards the icy water, the men will have to face down a series of threats. Crashing into the waves, drowning in the depths, freezing to death. They'll need to draw on all their training, resourcefulness and teamwork if they're to stay alive.

That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen today without adverts and without waiting a week by joining Noiser. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started.

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[Colin Dowler]

Simple.

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