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Grizzly mauling victim marries the woman who saved his life
Shaktoolik man's brush with death leads to vows
By ALEX deMARBAN
ademarban@adn.com
(Published: August 19, 2007)
In a rare wedding at the Alaska Native Medical Center on Friday, Shawn Evan rolled down an aisle in a wheelchair to marry the health aide who saved his life after a savage grizzly mauling in Western Alaska.
The broad-shouldered 32-year-old said thoughts of his longtime girlfriend, Lydia Jackson, and their two young sons kept him alive during the agonizing skiff ride back to the village of Shaktoolik after the attack on July 31.
Freezing because he'd lost so much blood, with only muscle, skin and a crude splint holding his shattered legs together below the knees, Evan struggled to stay awake.
"There was twice that my heart felt weird, different. I felt it slow down, like it was losing its pumping power," he said.
After villagers rushed him to the clinic in a truck bed, Jackson, 31, directed a desperate effort to keep him alive.
Jackson, now Lydia Evan, slid intravenous needles into Shawn's pale arms to replace lost fluid. She cut off his blood-soaked jeans and rubber boots. Blood gushed to the floor.
As he moaned, she cleaned his splintered bones and set them back in place as best she could with a proper splint.
"Everyone thought I would panic but I didn't," Lydia said Friday after the wedding. "I knew if we didn't stabilize him and get him to a hospital quickly, he wouldn't be with us today."
The couple has been together 10 years, since Evan permanently moved from California to the Inupiat village of 200 where he'd spent summers hunting and berry-picking to supply food for his grandmother.
Lydia has wanted to get married since she was pregnant with their first child, Ethan, now 7. But Shawn was stubborn and refused to pop the question even after Marcus was born 18 months ago, he said.
That changed at the hospital. Doctors told him he might lose a foot, even a leg, but constant support from Lydia and others lifted his spirits. He knew it was time to take life seriously, starting with marriage.
"After the first four or five days at the hospital I realized how lucky, how blessed I am. All the things I have. Good boys, my parents, Lydia. It all just kind of hit me."
THE ATTACK
Evan and two hunting partners, family friends Michael Rock, 23, and A.J. Nakarak, 17, traveled far up the Shaktoolik River the night of July 31. With moose season scheduled to open in a few hours, Evan wanted to bring one home for his grandmother.
The hunters were several miles from the village when they saw a bear swimming in the river about 300 yards away. Rock and Nakarak wanted the bear's meat and claws, so they shot it with their rifles, Evan said.
The bear bolted out of the water and in seconds had dashed up a steep hill. The trio stepped ashore minutes later and found bloody, wet tracks.
Making sure their weapons were fully loaded, they followed the trail up the hill through willow patches that sometimes limited visibility to 50 feet.
"That was a big mistake on our part," Evan said.
After traveling about a mile, Evan spotted the bear in willows, about 90 feet up the hill. He fired his .475 magnum pistol, hitting the bear. It rolled down end over end before crashing against willows, Evan said.
"We figured that would be it, but his head popped out of the willows," said Evan. "He came barreling down hill after me, really fast, I only got off one shot and I couldn't tell you where I hit it."
Evan turned to run, but the grizzly was too close. The bear's powerful jaws crushed his right calf. He isn't sure how his left leg was injured.
His hunting partners on either side of the bear "were shooting away" with their rifles until the bear died, he said. He believes a bullet went through the bear and shattered the bones in his left leg. Bullet fragments were later found in that leg.
The pain was devastating, said Evan.
"It felt like my legs were on fire."
After making sure it was dead with another bullet, Rock pried the bear's mouth off Evan's leg. Both feet were askew.
"I knew I was in deep trouble. I'm screaming, praying, asking how could this could happen, trying to vent my pain."
His partners cut belt straps from their rain gear and tied off Evan's legs below the knees to stop the bleeding. They fashioned a splint by strapping his legs to a large branch and dragged him down the steep slope to the boat.
"All I could think about at this time was my sons, two boys, and my fiancee," he said Friday. "That's what gave me the strength to keep going."
His partners carried him into the bow, elevated his legs atop seats to slow blood loss, covered him with blankets and rain gear and sped back to the village.
An hour later, Rock stopped the first boat they saw and borrowed the VHF and called ahead to let Shaktoolik know about their problem. Nakarak hovered over Evan's face, ordering him to keep his eyes open.
GETTING HELP
At the clinic, Evan remembers Lydia being calm.
Evan had lost several pints of blood, Lydia said. Medics from Nome brought two pints and flew him to Anchorage.
Doctors needed several surgeries over two weeks to screw and pin his bones back together. On the right side, where the bear bit him, doctors replaced bone with cement fragments, Lydia said. They've taken skin from other parts of his legs to graft over his wounds.
Early last week, after talking with family and Lydia's parents, Evan asked her to marry him.
"I said to myself, 'It's about time,' " she said.
They agreed to do it at the hospital while family, including Evan's mother from California, Stella Moore, was in town.
Friday night, relatives quickly transformed a gray conference room, erecting a snap-together arch laced with Christmas lights, scattering flower petals over carpet, and unrolling white fabric for an aisle.
Lydia gave Evan a sponge bath and slid newly bought slacks over his bandaged legs, then helped him squeeze into a wheelchair equipped with a machine that drained fluid from his legs.
More than 60 family and friends attended, including villagers and Anchorage residents who once lived in Shaktoolik. Curtis Rock, Michael's uncle, pushed Evan down the aisle.
During the ceremony, officiated by a Covenant Church pastor, the couple wiped away tears as they exchanged vows. She bent over and they kissed several times.
Shawn will need months of therapy and another surgery in a few months, but doctors hope he'll walk again, Lydia said.
He should be discharged sometime this week, once he can get around on crutches. While he heals, the newlyweds plan to live in California to be near his mom. A sometimes-construction worker in Shaktoolik, Evan hopes to become a teacher, and pay for Lydia's medical school so she can become a doctor.
"No more wasting time," he said.
WildshaktoolikisonthecoastupbynomeAlaska TM
Grizzly mauling victim marries the woman who saved his life
Shaktoolik man's brush with death leads to vows
By ALEX deMARBAN
ademarban@adn.com
(Published: August 19, 2007)
In a rare wedding at the Alaska Native Medical Center on Friday, Shawn Evan rolled down an aisle in a wheelchair to marry the health aide who saved his life after a savage grizzly mauling in Western Alaska.
The broad-shouldered 32-year-old said thoughts of his longtime girlfriend, Lydia Jackson, and their two young sons kept him alive during the agonizing skiff ride back to the village of Shaktoolik after the attack on July 31.
Freezing because he'd lost so much blood, with only muscle, skin and a crude splint holding his shattered legs together below the knees, Evan struggled to stay awake.
"There was twice that my heart felt weird, different. I felt it slow down, like it was losing its pumping power," he said.
After villagers rushed him to the clinic in a truck bed, Jackson, 31, directed a desperate effort to keep him alive.
Jackson, now Lydia Evan, slid intravenous needles into Shawn's pale arms to replace lost fluid. She cut off his blood-soaked jeans and rubber boots. Blood gushed to the floor.
As he moaned, she cleaned his splintered bones and set them back in place as best she could with a proper splint.
"Everyone thought I would panic but I didn't," Lydia said Friday after the wedding. "I knew if we didn't stabilize him and get him to a hospital quickly, he wouldn't be with us today."
The couple has been together 10 years, since Evan permanently moved from California to the Inupiat village of 200 where he'd spent summers hunting and berry-picking to supply food for his grandmother.
Lydia has wanted to get married since she was pregnant with their first child, Ethan, now 7. But Shawn was stubborn and refused to pop the question even after Marcus was born 18 months ago, he said.
That changed at the hospital. Doctors told him he might lose a foot, even a leg, but constant support from Lydia and others lifted his spirits. He knew it was time to take life seriously, starting with marriage.
"After the first four or five days at the hospital I realized how lucky, how blessed I am. All the things I have. Good boys, my parents, Lydia. It all just kind of hit me."
THE ATTACK
Evan and two hunting partners, family friends Michael Rock, 23, and A.J. Nakarak, 17, traveled far up the Shaktoolik River the night of July 31. With moose season scheduled to open in a few hours, Evan wanted to bring one home for his grandmother.
The hunters were several miles from the village when they saw a bear swimming in the river about 300 yards away. Rock and Nakarak wanted the bear's meat and claws, so they shot it with their rifles, Evan said.
The bear bolted out of the water and in seconds had dashed up a steep hill. The trio stepped ashore minutes later and found bloody, wet tracks.
Making sure their weapons were fully loaded, they followed the trail up the hill through willow patches that sometimes limited visibility to 50 feet.
"That was a big mistake on our part," Evan said.
After traveling about a mile, Evan spotted the bear in willows, about 90 feet up the hill. He fired his .475 magnum pistol, hitting the bear. It rolled down end over end before crashing against willows, Evan said.
"We figured that would be it, but his head popped out of the willows," said Evan. "He came barreling down hill after me, really fast, I only got off one shot and I couldn't tell you where I hit it."
Evan turned to run, but the grizzly was too close. The bear's powerful jaws crushed his right calf. He isn't sure how his left leg was injured.
His hunting partners on either side of the bear "were shooting away" with their rifles until the bear died, he said. He believes a bullet went through the bear and shattered the bones in his left leg. Bullet fragments were later found in that leg.
The pain was devastating, said Evan.
"It felt like my legs were on fire."
After making sure it was dead with another bullet, Rock pried the bear's mouth off Evan's leg. Both feet were askew.
"I knew I was in deep trouble. I'm screaming, praying, asking how could this could happen, trying to vent my pain."
His partners cut belt straps from their rain gear and tied off Evan's legs below the knees to stop the bleeding. They fashioned a splint by strapping his legs to a large branch and dragged him down the steep slope to the boat.
"All I could think about at this time was my sons, two boys, and my fiancee," he said Friday. "That's what gave me the strength to keep going."
His partners carried him into the bow, elevated his legs atop seats to slow blood loss, covered him with blankets and rain gear and sped back to the village.
An hour later, Rock stopped the first boat they saw and borrowed the VHF and called ahead to let Shaktoolik know about their problem. Nakarak hovered over Evan's face, ordering him to keep his eyes open.
GETTING HELP
At the clinic, Evan remembers Lydia being calm.
Evan had lost several pints of blood, Lydia said. Medics from Nome brought two pints and flew him to Anchorage.
Doctors needed several surgeries over two weeks to screw and pin his bones back together. On the right side, where the bear bit him, doctors replaced bone with cement fragments, Lydia said. They've taken skin from other parts of his legs to graft over his wounds.
Early last week, after talking with family and Lydia's parents, Evan asked her to marry him.
"I said to myself, 'It's about time,' " she said.
They agreed to do it at the hospital while family, including Evan's mother from California, Stella Moore, was in town.
Friday night, relatives quickly transformed a gray conference room, erecting a snap-together arch laced with Christmas lights, scattering flower petals over carpet, and unrolling white fabric for an aisle.
Lydia gave Evan a sponge bath and slid newly bought slacks over his bandaged legs, then helped him squeeze into a wheelchair equipped with a machine that drained fluid from his legs.
More than 60 family and friends attended, including villagers and Anchorage residents who once lived in Shaktoolik. Curtis Rock, Michael's uncle, pushed Evan down the aisle.
During the ceremony, officiated by a Covenant Church pastor, the couple wiped away tears as they exchanged vows. She bent over and they kissed several times.
Shawn will need months of therapy and another surgery in a few months, but doctors hope he'll walk again, Lydia said.
He should be discharged sometime this week, once he can get around on crutches. While he heals, the newlyweds plan to live in California to be near his mom. A sometimes-construction worker in Shaktoolik, Evan hopes to become a teacher, and pay for Lydia's medical school so she can become a doctor.
"No more wasting time," he said.
WildshaktoolikisonthecoastupbynomeAlaska TM
