An Amazing Bear Story – Maybe This Bear Just Wanted To Ride A Motorcycle!

I am one really lucky dude! On Sunday, July 11, 2010, a black bear came running across the road and straight into the side of my motorcycle. I have some bruising, soreness, some road-rash and abrasions – but no broken bones. The bike is pretty scraped up on the left side, and has a little present the bear left me as we tumbled down the road…

Yep, I had an incident with a black bear. My wife, Norma, and I were headed north on US Hwy 101 north of Newport, OR on the coast.  We were heading home after a fun long weekend in Newport with 4 other couples. The 4 other bikes were 4 or 5 minutes ahead of us, and I was in front of Norma a second or two. About 25 miles south of Tillamook I noticed a movement to my left so I turned to look and saw a full grown 400 lb (est) black bear at a full run headed across the road. I was gong 45 MPH or so, and I guess the bear was running at about 25. I watched that bear run right into the left side of my bike, just in front of my leg near the front forks. It was like slow motion, bear’s nose down, galloping along and bam, right into me. I think he tried to turn just before he hit me. When he hit, his body swung around and hit me in my left leg along the left side of my bike. It lifted my tires off the ground and he rolled under me as I rolled on top of him, still sitting in the seat of the bike and holding the handlebars.

So I’m on the bear who is skidding down the road with me on him. As the bear began to roll, I slid off the front of the bear and now I’m sliding down the asphalt on my left side. Meanwhile, the bike is on its left side scraping up the asphalt as we slide down the road together. I slid for about 60 or 70 feet before coming to a stop. At the same time the bear is tumbling and rolling right behind me. The bear came to a stop just a few feet from me. I don’t remember sliding down the road and coming to a stop, but I vividly remember the first part, that bear coming right into me and just slamming into the side of the bike, then on the bear. Crazy!

Now Norma, on her own bike a second or so behind me, sees the bear run down the embankment and right into me. For her it is very surreal. She slammed on her breaks and skidded to a stop, but now the bear was between her and me, on the road fussing. I’m lying on the ground with the bear about 10 feet from me. The bear finally got oriented and ran off into the woods. There was lots of bear hair and some blood on the road. I’m sure he was pissed!

Norma got to me first and tried to keep me down as I wanted to get right up. But the bike was still on my foot. She lifted that full size, loaded Harley right off my foot. I guess the adrenaline was really flowing. I do remember trying to get up as soon as my foot was out but could not – plus Norma kept telling me not to move around. I was in and out of consciousness for a while, and was on the ground some 15 to 20 minutes. Lots of people helped, paramedics and first aid got there fast and several highway patrol cars.

I did get up after about 20 minutes and was starting to get it together.  Remarkably I did not have a concussion and was lucid. My right hand and left foot hurt but not too bad. I was bleeding in a few spots and the paramedics cleaned and bandaged me up. I was wearing a Harley Kevlar 1/2 helmet, my new Harley leather jacket with Kevlar in the elbows, shoulder and forearms. I had Draggin’ Jeans Kevlar pants, heavy Red Wing leather boots, and fingerless leather gloves. They all show some wear and tear, of course. I was lucky I had all that gear on and it held up. The Nelson-Rigg pack ripped a bit, but held up really well.

Several guys picked my bike up and moved it to the other side of the road in a driveway. As you might imagine, the left side of the bike was pretty messed up. Front fender scratched and bent bad, windshield scratched and broke off, left mirror shattered and left shift lever ground down like someone took a grinder to it. The derby cover was badly scrapped up too and my luggage bag that was in the passenger spot behind me was torn up.

Also, the bear SHIT all over the back of my bike. I mean really, a lot of shit!! Oh, and hair too. So I think it scared the bear pretty bad, too. It was interesting to see what the bear had been eating recently.  No – not really???!!!!

The right side of my bike was good. That’s where the intake manifold, brakes, exhaust pipes, etc are — all good. The engine looked good, handlebars, shift lever worked and floor plates were pretty good. So after an hour or so, I tried to start the bike. It started and idled fine. I decided to see how she rode, and the State Patrol dude, Greg, said he’d follow me a while in case there was any issues. The paramedics checked out my eyes again and thought I was OK enough to drive.

So Norma and I took off down the road to drive the 250 miles home. I had no real issues, so off we rode north up Hwy 101 taking it easy, back roads (no freeway). We got home about 7:30 that evening. As we started really looking at all the gear I had on, we found a bear paw print on my shirt with 4 holes where the claws would be. Fortunately, I had a couple of shirts on and the claws didn’t go through to my skin. I’m going to frame that shirt. That must have happened when I was on him and he began to tumble. I was very sore Monday and much more swollen, my face has road-skid marks on my chin and nose, looks bad but doesn’t hurt much. I’m feeling a little better every day.

There were a lot of really great people that came out to help me that day and I am very grateful to them. The guy in the car behind Norma stopped, directed traffic and called 911 (he had on a yellow polo shirt that had “Parks” on it). The man and woman who lived on the hill where I crashed came down – she directed traffic coming the other way, and he was with Norma keeping tabs on me, making sure I was OK and stayed with us the whole time. Some women in the area were listening to the police scanner and got there with first aid. The police and sheriff officers were the best. And, I know there were others helping out as well. I really, really appreciate them and want to say THANK YOU for helping me.

That’s the first time I’ve ever been down, I’ve got 72,000 miles on this Harley.  Again – I was very lucky – I’m not sure I will ever take that bear shit off my bike!!!

(If you want to check out what happened from Norma’s perspective, click here)

Article submitted by David Dompier, Gig Harbor, WA