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TIFU by spraying myself with Bear spray, not once, but twice.

We live in Southern BC, black bears are around town fattening themselves up. We have a small number of Apple trees in our yard.

We got a new dog this week, he is a 9 month old German Shephard rescue. He is wonderful, still working on name recall etc.

Last night I let the dog out into our fenced yard for a toilet break before bed. I saw them too late, a decent sized Mumma black bear and a smaller cub in the back corner. He was off after them before I could react. Due to the size/shape of the Yard the Mumma bear hurried her cub up the closest tree and followed it after. I ran inside to grab the dogs lead and a can of bear spray we keep around (we get bears a lot).

A good 20 mins of him barking/lunging at them and the bears hissing/fake charging back.

I decided it was not going to resolve itself, the bears were not going anywhere (fenced in yard, unsure how they got in - perhaps over the back smaller fence) and I was not able to call the Dog to heel or get his lead onto him.

I decided to open the side gates around our house to give the bears 2 ways out, as I was securing the gate through our carport to the front (and hopefully a way out for the bears), I had the bear spray in my hand and accidentally leaned against the trigger (it's a top press, and I had the safety off when the bear started charging and I thought he might try and run up onto our back porch).

It was only a quick spray, but it was in an enclosed space (car port) and I was done. Blind and burning I stumbled out into the front and lay on the lawn. The dog noticed I was gone and to his credit came to check on me, fortunately I heard him and still had his lead in my hand, so was able to connect it to his collar and I fumbled us in the side door (from carport) and locked it behind us. Bear problem solved, I had bigger issues though.

Ended up filling sink with water and dunking my head in there for a few minutes, which helped a little, then I was in the shower for a good 20mins flushing my face under the water. Came good about 35mins post spray, no ongoing effects.

This morning, I go out to clean up the mess, I close the gates, check on the trees, the dog runs around sniffing everything and I go back inside. There is the real TIFU I guess, I had not considered residual bear spray on the door handle and frame for the gate, when I came back inside I wiped the inside of my eye and it hit me again. F, back in the shower for another 15 minutes, luckily just the one eye. Several hours later I feel like I have a mild sunburn.

I need to go back to the carport and hose everything down, ill wear gloves and PPE this time.

TLDR: I was clumsy and bear sprayed myself in the face, forgot about residual spray and post cleanup today got it back in my eyes again.

Edit: *spelling

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