The bear spray incident

Yesterday was a day of very good very bad luck. 

While we were out in Glacier National Park earlier this year, we purchased bear spray as the area has quite a few grizzly bears. Luckily we didn't need to use it, but decided to keep it as we knew we would be spending time hiking out in Oregon and Idaho. 

Saturday we decided to hike around Mt Hood. I brought a different backpack on this trip - one that has size pockets but no waist belt. So I ended up putting the bear spray there and thought everything would be ok since the safety was firmly in place. 

Fast forward to the end of our hike when we are getting out of the car. I grab my backpack to head inside and hear a hissing/rushing sound coming from the backseat. Confused, I turn to look and find the source of the sound. Next thing I hear is George yelling "Get out now!" and we scramble out of the car. Almost immediately after, I start to feel my eyes burning and we are both coughing. And that's when I realize that I just accidentally bear sprayed our car. Yikes. 

George then opens up all of the car doors and sends me inside with repeated instructions to not touch my eyes. (Luckily our neighborhood in Portland has many signs up about how to deal with tear gas due to the heavy use of it in the last few months) We end up throwing me in the shower to be doused with milk, saline and water to control the burning. 

 

After a long shower, the pain subsided back to normal. I could open my left eye again without major stinging and crying.

So now we are left with trying to figure out how to clean the car and our possessions that are also covered in pepper spray. We have a mobile cleaning company coming out tonight, but they admittedly have never attempted to remove bear spray from inside a vehicle before. Fingers crossed their best guess works. Otherwise we might end up with a large insurance claim. As this will be our second insurance claim this month (George had some items stolen as we were moving out), we are also hoping to keep that number to 2.