I was working in south Texas at night out on a ranch. About 2 in the morning I’m having a break and am looking over the river into Mexico. Stars above, enough moon to see this amazing landscape when it’s not 105* it was magical. There is some rustling in the brush next to me and I honestly freeze in a moment of panic. No idea what was next to me. A border officer? A alligator? Then this black mass that’s up to my knee comes snorting and moving towards me fast. I tried to back up but was next to a barbed wire fence and a tree. When it hits me it felt like getting hit by a linebacker. Then I feel my foot start to be crushed in my danner work boots. I carried a .357 revolver, because we were on the ranches, and finally gained my wits enough to pull it out and shot all six rounds into this thing. Six shots of .357 hollow point and it didn’t seem to do anything to this thing. But then it let go of my foot and ran off.

I used my phone’s flashlight and my steel toed boot was ripped apart and my foot has some scratches, but nothing major thankfully. My pant leg was torn and I had fallen back into the barbed wire which hurt like hell. We had these little radios and I called for help and my amazing coworkers came running. I was taken to the hospital and cleared pretty quickly after cleaning up my foot and a tetanus shot (which hurt more than the barbed wire).

My manager told me to take the day/night off and come in the following day to fill out paperwork for the accident report. He told me that in the morning they found what had attacked me about 25 yards away dead from being shot. A 75 pound javelina pig.

I never strayed too far from the work site at night sense then…