HIS BEST FRIEND WAS A 250-POUND WARTHOG ...

ONE DAY IT DECIDED TO KILL HIM

- Peter Holley

He'd come close to dying on multiple occasions, including a few months before his first birthday, when doctors discovered a golf ball-sized tumor growing inside his skull. Austin Riley would go on to spend much of his childhood in and out of hospitals, enduring high-risk brain surgeries and grueling recoveries. Then, in his mid-20s, he was nearly killed by a cerebral hemorrhage that arrived one night, unleashing the worst pain he'd ever felt. He emerged from that experience reborn, feeling lucky to be alive and convinced that he had been spared by God.

So as he sat in a pool of his own blood on a beautiful October evening in 2022, Austin, then 31, couldn't help but acknowledge the morbid absurdity of his current predicament. He'd spent decades conquering brain maladies only to be killed while doing mundane chores on his family's ranch in Texas Hill Country.

"After all I'd been through," he says, "I just couldn't believe that this was how it was going to end."

As Austin slumped against a fence in an isolated part of the 130-acre property and his mangled body began to shut down, his mind went into overdrive. He thought about his girlfriend, Kennedy Buckley, whom he'd never get a chance to marry, and the children he'd never have. He thought about how much he loved his three sisters and his parents and how badly he wished he could thank them for the life they'd provided. He thought about the land stretched out before him, a rustic valley accentuated by crimson and amber foliage that seemed to glitter in the evening light, and realized it had never seemed more beautiful than it did in that moment.

Mostly he thought about the creature that had just used its razor-sharp 7-inch tusks to gore him at least 15 times. The attack had shredded his lower body and filled his boots with blood, and left gaping holes in his torso and neck. Had any other animal been responsible, Austin would've considered it a random attack.