While most of the world was busy hiding in their homes for fear of a virus, this bro survived getting jumped by a mountain lion — while doing his job.
It’s impressive enough just to survive a wrestling match with a mountain lion — even more so when you’ve just survived a heart attack.
Back on March 11, Randy Kerschen, 41, was laying tile at a job site near Loveland Colorado when a UPS driver rolled up with a package. The two men knew each other and talked about baseball.
It wasn’t until the last moment that he noticed nearby movement. The cat took two steps toward Randy and pounced.
Everything happened in a matter of seconds. The lion knocked Kerschen onto his back and bit his arm. He threw it into a tree but it ran right back toward him. It jumped on top of him again and swiped at him.
He got the lion down past his feet and kicked it as hard as he could in the chest, then the face. It didn’t seem to phase it at all. The lion then got past his feet and made its way toward his throat and face.
“It’s me or him. and I’m not quitting until one of us is gone,” Kerschen said he thought at that point, and got ready to try and choke the lion. Then the driver, Alejandro Rodriguez, hit it with a piece of pallet and the lion finally ran away.
…By his own admission, Kerschen is hard to kill. He survived a heart attack earlier this year, and in 2015 had to pull himself out of the Arkansas River on a fishing trip. Fishing is one of his favorite hobbies, and it’s something he’s looking forward to being able to do again after he can move his arm above his waist.
“I’m not going to die easy,” he said.
His injuries included bite marks and three torn tendons. They will require surgery.
Kerschen is still struggling with the emotional aftereffects of the attack. Even in the middle of Fort Collins, he’s still jumpy. He went for a walk the other day and brought a knife with him. He considered bringing one of his pistols, but didn’t walk to freak out and accidentally shoot somebody’s dog.
“It messes with your head,” he said.
His priest has been helping him work through things. And in a way, Kerschen thinks he was in the right place at the right time. If he hadn’t been there, the mountain lion might have gone down to the adjacent RV park, where a group of young children were outside playing, or headed over to the elementary school across the street.
He credits his survival to “adrenaline, luck and God’s grace, plain and simple.”
God’s grace, indeed.
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If a person looked to Scripture and paid particular attention to the passages within the Bible that address the topic of hunting, then they’d walk away thinking not only is hunting animals tolerated but it is endorsed by God. And that’s exactly what this little book is about: proving that God, from Genesis to Revelation, is extremely cool with hunters and hunting. I’ll go out on a biblical limb and claim right off the bat that you cannot show me, through the balance of the Bible, that the God of the Scripture is against the responsible killing and the grilling of the animals He created. ~Doug Giles
In his killer new book RISE, KILL & EAT: A Theology of Hunting From Genesis to Revelation Doug carries on with his courageous war against the lunatic fringe who dare recommend Bambi solutions to the annual production of edible wildlife. –Ted Nugent
