Fifty miles. That's a long hike through the remote, grueling wilderness of Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. Finally, I was only 30 minutes from finishing. I was excited, determined and exhausted. To earn our 50-mile hike merit badges, my Boy Scout troop had been hiking and camping for a week. On this last day, we'd gotten up early and hit the trail. More than two dozen of us were scattered in small clusters along the rugged path. Four of us were several miles out in front of everyone else. We were ready to be finished and go home to Texas.

As I led Aaron, Mikey and Mikey's dad in a single file line along the narrow path, I found myself daydreaming about Chicken McNuggets. It'd been a great hike, but we were tired. We'd been sleeping on the ground for a week and carrying all our stuff on our backs. Mikey's dad, Mike, had it the worst. In addition to his gear, he was given a .44 magnum to carry. Most of the adults had guns for protection from wildlife, but this was the biggest—weighing almost 8 pounds! He often complained about having to haul it around in his pack. But right now, no one was complaining, or even talking. We were silent. We were just so beat.

The problem with silence is that Kenai is bear country. And one of the first rules of bear safety is to make a lot of noise so that the bears are always aware of where you are. You don't want to surprise a grizzly. But that's exactly what happened.

The trail ahead of me curved to the right. It was thickly wooded and hard to see what was around the bend. As I took the curve about 10 paces ahead of the guys, the trail suddenly opened into a grassy area. And that's when I saw it: a 600-pound, 8-foot brown bear sitting in the grass 20 feet away. He was as startled to see me as I was to see him.

He charged and was on top of me immediately, knocking me to my stomach. All I could do was scream, "Bear!" Before I knew what was happening, the bear had sunk his teeth deep into both my arm and thigh. I knew I was going to die.

Aaron and Mikey heard my screams and ran around the bend. They yelled and screamed, but the bear wasn't going anywhere. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. But since I was on my stomach, my backpack was between him and me. He attacked the pack—especially my sleeping bag mounted on top. I now realize the bear probably thought the bag was my head since it was the highest part of my body. He jerked my sleeping bag off the pack and thrashed it around like a doggie toy.

Aaron ran back around the curve to alert Mike. Quickly, Mike whipped off his pack, pulled out the pistol and shot it into the air. Scared, the bear leapt off me and ran away. Although it had seemed like forever, the attack lasted less than 10 seconds.

The next few hours are a blur. I only remember bits and pieces of things—like my friends yelling, "Where did it go?" and "Is he OK?"

I knew I was hurt, but I didn't know how badly. Unable to move, I lay where the bear left me. I feared the worst as I did a mental check of my body. My head seemed OK. My chest was fine. But my right arm and leg were badly wounded. Aaron knows a lot of first aid, so he talked to a 911 operator on his cell phone and looked after me. He and Mike carefully removed my jacket to check the damage to my arm. It looked like a bloody hunk of meat. My pants were soaked with blood, but the 911 operator told us not to remove my pants to check my leg. I wasn't sure how bad it was, but I worried I was losing too much blood.

Aaron used T-shirts to make tourniquets for my leg and arm. This stopped the bleeding pretty fast. When he told me the bleeding was stopped, I thought, I'm OK. I've lived through it. I was crying—both from the pain and from the joy of still being alive. I remember just thanking God over and over.

Because we were in such a remote area, it took a long time for help to arrive. Rescuers had to come for me on 4-wheelers and drive me two miles to an ambulance. Three hours after the attack, I arrived at a hospital. I was taken into surgery to see if there was any bone, tendon or ligament damage. But amazingly, there was none. In surgery, the doctors cleaned out my wounds and sewed everything back together. I went home a couple of days later.

Everything has healed now, other than a few spots on my arm where there's no feeling because of nerve damage. I have six scars on my right arm and leg. Probably the hardest thing to deal with is that every time I see the massive scars I think, Wow, a bear did that. But I survived. And I know why: Because God protected me. I can see now how God was involved. A lot of things might seem like coincidences, but they weren't. Mike was the only adult carrying a gun large enough to scare a bear, and he was with us. The bear attacked the sleeping bag instead of my head. Aaron almost didn't come on the trip, but his mom practically made him. All of these things had a reason.

The craziest part of the story is that we didn't have a cell phone signal any time before the attack or after Aaron called 911. Just right then. So, you could say we hit a hot spot. But I think it was divine intervention because it doesn't make sense any other way. I think God knew it was not my time to die and he needed me here, so he protected me.

Why would God protect me? I don't know for sure. But, I know I'm still alive because God has plans for my life—big or small. In church on Sundays, we've always sung hymns about God watching over us and protecting us. Now when we sing those songs, I think, "I know exactly what that feels like."

Alex, a junior, plans to join the military and pursue a career in politics. He's currently working on his Eagle rank in Boy Scouts, plays the French horn, and is a first sergeant in his school's JROTC program.

Discuss this on the 'Teens' message boards

Read more from 'It Happened to Me'

				Try an Issue of Ignite Your Faith RISK-FREE! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Ignite Your Faith coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive eight more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issues are yours to keep, regardless. Give Ignite Your Faith as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!