After breaking his leg on a dirt bike trail, a Manitoba man spent 25 hours trying to get help, facing endless bug bites and a black bear that had been eyeing him.
Randy Wood stopped during a routine ride on a trail in Manitoba to take a picture of a turtle for his grandkids, according to CBC News. After realizing he didn't have his phone on him, Wood left only for his bike to get caught on sand and subsequently crashed on its side, leaving his leg crushed in between it and the ground.
Though he managed to remove his leg from the bike, Wood knew it was broken. He placed sticks around his leg and used his shirt to wrap them around it until he could find someone to help him.
Wood then attempted to crawl back home, which he estimates was approximately 6 kilometers away from the crash.
"The sand flies were atrocious," Wood told CBC. "They were just chewing me to pieces because I didn't have a shirt on."
Wood spotted a black bear that he said was watching him not too far off.
"It wasn't one of these little ones that are hopping around. It was a big bear," Wood explained. "So I tried to make myself big. I got up as far as I could, like on my knees, straight up. I yelled and told him to get out of here."
Continuing his quest to find safety, Wood kept crawling so the bear wouldn't be able to track him. However, the bugs didn't help clear his mind. Wood found shrubbery and used it to cover and protect himself from the endless wave of mosquitoes.
He stayed in that location overnight and when the day broke he found different shaded places so the sun wouldn't wipe him out entirely.
Wood then lost consciousness but regained it when he heard the sound of a motor. It wound up being an RCMP quad that picked him up and brought him back to safety.
After being treated for the bites and ticks, Wood was discharged from the hospital and returned home to his wife, who says they now have set up new ground rules to prevent this from happening again.
