Trapped black bear destroys car in Montana

RED LODGE, Mont. — A retired Pittsburgh schoolteacher could do nothing but laugh after a Montana black bear broke into her car, destroyed the interior while trying to escape and finally busted out through the windshield. The Billings Gazette reports that the bear became trapped early Thursday inside Ellen Stolpe’s Toyota Camry at a lodge near the city of Red Lodge, north of the eastern edge of Yellowstone National Park. Some walkers spooked the animal, leading it to break out of the windshield. Before it escaped, the bear pulled on the driver’s door so hard the metal bent. It damaged interior plastic, put a nose print on a back window and left waste on the floor. Stolpe says she guesses it’s part of the Montana experience to get claw marks on the dashboard.