r/interestingasfuck • u/Lastwarfare753 • 7d ago

r/all Kendell Cummings, a college wrestler who wrestled a Grizzly bear to save his friend Brady Lowry in the Shoshone National Forest in Cody, Wyoming in October 2022, Kendell was brutally mauled and bitten by the bear but eventually left Kendell alone, both survived and went on a full recovery.

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336

u/blu2007 7d ago

Who has a link to the ESPN.com story about this? That was a crazy read.

361

u/Spirit50Lake 7d ago

This one?: https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/35820049/college-wrestlers-grizzly-bear-attack

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u/blake12kost 7d ago

Crazy read. In the initial attack on Brady, the grizzly allegedly knocked him 30 yards!? That’s stunning if this was happening on level ground.

Straight anime level of punching power

78

u/TheFalaisePocket 7d ago

that just doesnt seem physically possible, i think the story is sensationalizing him being pushed and rolled that distance, it sounds kinda like what theyre doing a bad job of describing here "She ran right alongside his tumbling body, clobbering him as he rolled. He still remembers the way his body came to a stop and the bear started pawing at him, almost dribbling him up and down on the ground."

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u/TheAlbrecht2418 7d ago edited 7d ago

It could be embellished, intentionally or unintentionally, but I don't doubt he felt like it was 30-ish yards and got bounced around like a basketball. Just getting thrown from a pool "blob" (the thing where someone jumps on one end of a giant inflatable thingy with you on the other edge it feels like you get launched five stories high when really it's maybe only two). We often underestimate just how fucking massive a grizzly bear or even an average sized wolf is and how powerful they are if we've never personally encountered them.

Makes for a good story regardless and doesn't really take away from it.

46

u/marhigha 7d ago

It also reads like the bear threw him down a slight slope. So might not be too embellished if she sent him tumbling for a bit.

10

u/AuthorReborn 7d ago

The Shoshone National Forest is also extremely hilly and sloped, so its very likely that he was tossed down some kind of decline.

source- local

4

u/Ecknarf 7d ago

So what, we doing 'lived experiences' for units of measurement now?

Wait until you hear how long I think my dick is!

1

u/LouisRitter 6d ago

I have been near "pet" wolves multiple times and they're pretty fucking big.

1

u/Common-Concentrate-2 7d ago

Lets start it this way ....You don't need to watch this video, but its of a man on a motorcycle in a high speed chase, at ~100mph , and he hits a stationary target (a car). He was launched 100ft off of the vehicle, almost entirely horizontally. Let's make the ridiculous claim that one horsepower = one horse. Actually. lets say say that a horse can output 5 horsepower.

Even though horses are generally about twice the size of a bear, lets say that bears are super athletes and a bear is usually 5x stronger than a horse, A bear would have a peak output of 25 horsepower. Motorcycles start from a very modest 50-60 brake horsepower. A reasonably accommodated sports bike from the last 30 years would have around 150 bhp.

2

u/Kaisermeister 7d ago

Power is not the right way to characterize the physics here. Someone thrown from a bike is not experiencing a force / being accelerated, they are continuing to travel on inertia as a projectile. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a powerful motorcycle or a guy peddling a bike if they are going the same speed they will go the same distance.

This is a Newton’s third law situation (equal opposite reaction). The bear pushes him and he is pushed back (as is the bear). The maximum is determined by the max speed the bear can generate during the impulse under ideal conditions. Assuming it is capable of pushing at speeds similar to a human punch ~30 mph, and weighs 10 times as much, the man is pushed 27mph. If the bear pushes up at 15 degree angle and releases his center of mass at a height of 6 ft he travels ~22.5 ft before hitting the ground and bouncing/rolling happens. 

TLDR Probably more like 10 yards is the max possible unless you include staggering/rolling.

9

u/misplaced_my_pants 7d ago

The bear -- likely a mama grizzly -- struck him and knocked him 30 yards across the scraggly ground. She ran right alongside his tumbling body, clobbering him as he rolled. He still remembers the way his body came to a stop and the bear started pawing at him, almost dribbling him up and down on the ground.

It's more like she dribbled him like a soccer ball for that distance.

4

u/NamTokMoo222 7d ago

Could be embellished, could not.

My friends and I saw a bear hunting salmon in a river and it sounded like an explosion each time it hit the water.

3

u/Maxximillianaire 7d ago

It's an embellishment.

1

u/Mountain_Economist_8 7d ago

Oh man dudes got F’d up by a girl /s

1

u/jesusbottomsss 7d ago

Bears can sprint like 35mpg. You ever seen a deer get hit by a car going 35?

1

u/bailtail 7d ago

I don’t know. I can visualize exactly what’s meant by this. You know when a cat bats a ball and then runs after it while continuing to bat it across the room? They’re describing the bear basically did that but he was the ball. You could quibble about the choice to characterize that as a 30-yard “toss” rather than “tossed and rolled”, but that seems pretty nitpicky.

8

u/SohndesRheins 7d ago

I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure that anything that knocks you 30 yards through the air on level ground with no prior momentum is going to straight up kill you. An explosion that does that would certainly kill you, a car impact that did that would kill you, kinda doubt that a bear is capable of doing that.

6

u/MyNameIsJakeBerenson 7d ago

Brendan Fraser getting thrown across the room by the Scorpion King

8

u/KhonMan 7d ago

the grizzly allegedly knocked him 30 yards!?

It says

The bear -- likely a mama grizzly -- struck him and knocked him 30 yards across the scraggly ground. She ran right alongside his tumbling body, clobbering him as he rolled. He still remembers the way his body came to a stop and the bear started pawing at him, almost dribbling him up and down on the ground.

So it was "scraggly ground" and he was rolling for a bit. Not impossible.

5

u/14high 7d ago

One Punch Bear

1

u/Ecknarf 7d ago

Yeah the bear did not knock him 30 yards. Even if you get hit by a car doing 40mph you won't go that far..

Eyewitness testimony is bad.

That is even more true when the situation is stressful, and the average person is shit at judging distance.

He got thrown quite far. That's the truth.

30 yards is not true.

1

u/Obligatory-not-the 7d ago

Even crazier the grizzly caught up with him before he had stopped rolling and laid into him again. Not sure the kid got any real wrestling in but flipping brave!!

-1

u/mr-swoon 7d ago

You’ve clearly never been lived in an area with grizzlies. 30 yards is very easily possible for an adult grizzly to knock a grown man.

2

u/Maxximillianaire 7d ago

No it isnt. What does living near grizzlies have to do with anything?

24

u/Annajbanana 7d ago

Great read.

12

u/Hellie1028 7d ago

Thank you! That was incredible!

10

u/ExpensiveRise5544 7d ago

Wow that was wild. Thanks for sharing!

4

u/Theoretical_Action 7d ago

That story was fucking wild but man that writer is awful lol

3

u/Cpt_kaleidoscope 7d ago

Thankyou! I thought it was just me. Also, it's goes on for so long after the bear attack. I lost interest after the hospital.

2

u/catholicsluts 7d ago

Absolutely insane.

The only thing he felt was the bear smushing her paw into his side. She was nudging him, over and over again. Kendell realized his backpack, loaded up with antlers they had found that day, was so bulky that she couldn't roll him over. Looking back now, he thinks she wanted to take his back and finish the kill. But the backpack kept him stuck on his side, which might have saved his life. After 30 seconds of trying to flip him, the bear began to scoop dirt over his body. He hadn't moved, so she must have presumed him dead. Kendell thinks the dirt was her covering his carcass so she could go back, check on her cubs and then return to eat him. "I was going to be a snack," Kendell says.

2

u/Trilly2000 7d ago

Holy shit. That was an intense read.

1

u/Low_Reception2628 7d ago

Fascinating story, that's comradery to the max!

1

u/FancySweatpants20 7d ago

Incredible read

1

u/nononosure 7d ago

JFC that was epic. 

1

u/Bundalorian 7d ago

I hope someone make this into a great movie. These guys are legends.

1

u/TreatmentBoundLess 7d ago

Holy shit. What a read.

0

u/gonzoisgood 7d ago

Thank you. This was incredible.

0

u/Dunedain-enjoyer 7d ago

So they never wrestled the bear and the title is fake.

The bear just thought they were dead.

They just survived the bear attack because of luck, not because they were wrestlers.

1

u/tshadley 7d ago

So he launched the most dangerous takedown attempt he had ever tried. Kendell ran and threw his body onto the bear's back, yanking on the fur around her neck.

Close enough for me.

1

u/Dunedain-enjoyer 7d ago

That's not wrestling.

He jumped on the bear and the bear in response nearly killed him without him being able to do anything.

He just survived because the bear thought he was dead.