A man rebranded himself as the ‘bionic chef’ after a bizarre near-death experience left him hospitalised for 48 days back more than 10 years ago.
Eduardo Garcia was on an archery hike in Montana in October 2011, about ‘three miles into black bear country’ during hunting season, when he came across the animal that would change his life forever – although not in the way you'd probably assume.
Watch the trailer for the documentary made about Garcia's incident here:
He stumbled upon ‘the remains of a baby black bear’ and, as he often picks up natural objects to pass on to a friend who runs a youth education programme, stopped to check it out.
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Kneeling down, Garcia prodded the bear with his knife, at which point a ‘symphony of sound, energy and light erupted’ in his body.
It turned out to be 2,400 volts of electricity coursing through him, as the bear had been killed by a buried, live electrical wire.
Telling Today about the ordeal in 2015, Garcia recalled: “My next memory was the sky above me.
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“Somehow I got up. I could hear the sound of the gravel beneath my feet as I was walking, thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’ I looked at my left hand and it was charred and black, curled at a 90 degree angle from my elbow against my body.”
He managed to walk down a winding road to the river, through rocks and bushes, and eventually made it to a cabin, where a man sat him down and called an ambulance.
After being taken to the emergency room in Livington, Garcia was flown to the intensive care unit at the University of Utah burn trauma center in Salt Lake City.
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He continued: “They amputated my hand, removed four of my ribs, and parts of the major muscle groups in my legs and torso. I also had ten months of intensive scalp reconstruction.
“I had nine electricity exit wounds, including one in the groin and inner thigh area.”
Sadly, the anguish was far from over, as when the tissue samples came back from the lab, they tested positive for testicular cancer, and would require a 'rigorous regimen' of chemotherapy.
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“Imagine: I had plastic surgeons, a burn trauma team, a cardio-thoracic team and now, suddenly, oncologists all working in tandem rebuilding me and saving my life,” Garcia said.
“That team shifted gears and stabilized me, putting much of my reconstruction on hold.”
Garcia now has a successful career as a celebrity chef - nicknamed the 'bionic chef' as he cooks using a prosethetic hand - having also founded Mexican food company Montana Mex.
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In 2018, a documentary called Charged: The Eduardo Garcia Documentary was also released after being crowdfunded on Kickstarter.
"Eventually I decided to do the film because I know that so much good will come from it," Garcia said, adding: "If I've learned anything from my time in hospital and recovery, it’s that to survive in life we need help from others, and the strength of a strong team and family becomes unstoppable."
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Topics: US News
Jess Hardiman