Oregon man recalls bear attack in Montana

EUGENE, Ore. — Steve Bartley, of Springfield, recognizes the irony in the way his plan to motorcycle through the Montana mountains was interrupted.

"Our whole purpose for being over there was to ride this wonderful, twisty, serene, beautiful mountain pass called Beartooth, of all things," Bartley, 59, recalled.

He found the bear and the teeth. He was thrashing in his nylon tent as a grizzly gnawed on each of his hands. Surgeons inserted pins and stitched him up.

"Maybe next year," he said.

He was in a tent his sister had bought at Eugene's REI store last summer. The tough tent and its rip-stop nylon may have saved his life, Bartley said. There was nothing else between him and the bear, which ran off before he could get a look at it.

So REI gave Bartley a replacement four-man tent for free and threw in a can of bear spray that Bartley said he'll never leave at home.

"This is really kind of you folks to do this," said Bartley, a former Colorado law-enforcement officer who works part time for the Willamalane Park and Recreation District.

Bartley suffered serious injuries to both hands in the July 18 attack.

He told his story on CBS's "The Early Show" last week from Wyoming after being released from a hospital in Cody, Wyo.

In addition to puncture wounds and lacerations, his right hand was broken below his thumb.

He has his stitches out and will have two pins in his right thumb for weeks. The Wyoming surgeon said he has an 80 percent to 100 percent chance of regaining full use of his right hand.

Bartley and a friend, Jim Osher, rode their motorcycles from Oregon to Wyoming and through Yellowstone over five days.

They were on their way to a motorcycle rally in Gillette, Wyo., on what was to be a three-week trip.

They were in separate tents. Bartley was jolted awake by what felt like someone hitting him with a chair, he said. The bear was hitting him through the tent in the back with its nose or head.

He reached for the zipper on the tent but before he got it open, the bear grabbed his right hand with its claws and then its mouth.

"I'm screaming, the tent's crashing down around me, it's collapsing and I start hitting him with my left hand," Bartley said.

Then the bear began biting his left hand, then returned to the right one.

"That's when I could hear crunching, and I knew bones were breaking," Bartley said.

"And I'm just screaming as loud as I can for help. Then it just kind of stopped as suddenly as it started."

Bartley's screams and the yelling of other campers apparently scared away the bear, which was captured last week by Montana wildlife personnel.

The bear is destined for the Bear Research Center at Washington State University, and Bartley has been invited to meet the critter this month. He says he'll go.

"I've got to," Bartley said. "I need closure."

The bear, tagged as Bear No. 495, will live out its life at the center as a research subject.

"I'm going to tell him, 'No hard feelings,' " Bartley said. "Enjoy your life, because I'm enjoying mine." He recalled the late comedian George Carlin, who said, "Every day, I go to the paper and look in the obituaries. And if I'm not there, I'm having a good day."