Crouching on a sagebrush-covered hillside near Gardiner on Saturday morning, Roman Morris hoped the lumbering grizzly would walk on by.

But just as the female bear passed within a few yards of him, it turned around and attacked.

“It charged down the hill and just drilled me,” said Morris, 21, a Carroll College student and wide receiver on the school’s football team.

Over the next 30 to 45 seconds, Morris fought with the bear as it bit and clawed, severing his left hamstring, puncturing his shoulder and chomping at his head several times.

“I thought the whole time, ‘This is so messed up. I’m going to die, I’m going to die,’ ” Morris said.

The bear ran off after a friend fired a pistol. Morris underwent surgery in Livingston later in the day and was recuperating Monday at his brother’s house in Helena — the lucky survivor of one of two grizzly attacks north of Gardiner on Saturday.

“I still have a pretty dang good headache from the whole thing,” he said Monday afternoon.

Morris said he and his brother, Mitch, and friend, Josh Love, set out to Beattie Gulch early Saturday to bow hunt for elk.

The air was still frosty and daylight was just arriving as the three split up. Morris found a spot halfway up a hill behind some sagebrush. After hearing some rustling, he quietly pulled an arrow from his quiver and readied his bow. Just then, he saw the grizzly about 15 feet away, walking at an angle toward him.

He felt certain the bear knew he was there but just hadn’t acknowledged him. Morris thought briefly about shooting it but knew there would be a good chance the bear would only be antagonized.

Instead, he waited for it to continue on its way.

The bear, though, turned and charged. Morris said he stood partway up and started to draw his bow when the grizzly hit him. For several seconds as they slid downhill, he held the bear’s head and pounded away with his fist.

“I put everything I had into it. It didn’t budge at all,” said Morris, who is 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds. “It felt like the biggest animal I’ve ever been next to.”

The grizzly swatted Morris, its claw stabbing a 2-inch hole into his shoulder. He dropped down and put his hands behind his head. The bear bit at his head several times, but it couldn’t find purchase because of his hooded jacket’s slick outer layer.

“That jacket probably saved my life,” he said.

The bear tried to roll him over, looking for a bite of his face or head, he said. Morris said he tried to play dead but also kept pushing the bear away as it bit and slapped at him.

Finally, the grizzly tore into his left leg — leaving a deep 9-inch gash — and tossed him, perhaps five to eight feet, he said.

“I don’t know how you can stay still when it sinks its teeth into you,” Morris said.

His coat was ripping, his hood was sliding off and the bear kept picking him up and dropping him. Morris, after being bitten more than a dozen times, felt certain his end was coming.

Just then, his friend fired a shot and the grizzly took off.

Morris and the two others hiked a mile or so back to the car. He’s grateful they were there to fire the shot, yell at the bear during the attack and get him to safety.

On Monday, Morris said he still didn’t understand why the bear attacked. She was with three cubs, but they weren’t under any threat as far as he could tell. Morris wasn’t carrying pepper spray, saying he wasn’t convinced it’s as effective at keeping bears at bay as some claim.

The grizzly was doing more than just defending itself, Morris thinks.

“It was looking at me like I was an easy meal,” Morris said.

The doctor told him he can’t put pressure or weight on his injured leg for the next month or so and that it could be about a year before it’s back to normal. Morris, a pre-med major at Carroll, won’t be playing more football this year.

He does hope to fill his elk tag.

“I’m definitely going back out hunting as soon as I can,” he said.