he would ride the bull this time. From 1993 to 1995, Bodacious had been out of competition for long periods due to an injury; however, he returned as a more dangerous animal, having developed a new bucking move "involving him bringing his rear up with his head to the ground, luring a rider to shift his weight forward, and then thrusting his head up full force, to smash the rider in the face". An article in the New Yorker described the encounter: This time, a split second after leaving the chute, the bull bucked forward with all his might. Hedeman did what riders are supposed to do: he leaned high over the bull's shoulders and flung his arm back as a counterbalance. But just as he came forward, Bodacious threw his head back—smashing it square into Hedeman's face. Hedeman stayed on somehow, his hand twisted in the rope, only to get head-butted again, thrown into the air, and bounced off the bull's back like a rag doll. Hedeman lasted four seconds. Looking back at the ride, Hedeman feels he was "overconfident and underprepared". "When I nodded for him, the first jump felt fine," he said. "Then, all of a sudden, whack! When I hit the ground, I felt numb." What Hedeman could not see was how his face really looked; how much blood was on it. "When I was walking out of the arena I bit down and my teeth didn't come together, so I figured my jaw was broken," Hedeman recalled. "I didn't realize my whole face was smashed. But when I looked at people looking at me, they looked like they'd seen the devil." At the hospital, doctors diagnosed Hedeman and said every major bone in his face was broken. Hedeman went through two surgeries which installed six titanium plates and totaled 13 hours. On discharge, the swelling of his face was so extreme that his own young son could not recognize him. In December 1995 at the NFR, Hedeman drew Bodacious for the last time in the seventh round of the finals, part of the Championship round, about two months after his previous bout with the bull. Hedeman "had lost twenty-five pounds and his body was still healing, but he'd managed to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo anyway". When it was Bodacious he drew, he climbed onto the bull's back in the chute to secure his