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Joel Blog Mug Even from his bed in a rehabilitation center near Denver, Colorado, where he’s recovering from a rare spinal condition that left him paralyzed from the navel down, Capt. Tred Barta projects the kind of swagger and intensity that made him a legend on the East Coast tuna grounds, and launched him to the top of the outdoors television world.

“I’m very, very, very, very, very confidant that the first TV show I’ll be doing this year is the (Oregon Tuna Classic) tournament (in late August),” Barta said Friday, as he rested between rehabilitation sessions at the Craig Rehabilitation Center in Craig, Colorado. “And the next show after that? It’ll be an Oregon elk hunt. I’m coming to that tournament, I’m going to help raise some money, and the only question people should have is ‘How are we gonna get an elk for Tred?’. I don’t care if they have to prop me up on a hay bale, I’m coming for my elk.”

It’s that swagger and positive attitude that family, friends and fans of the amiable star of “The Best and Worst of Tred Barta” are counting on to help him overcome a spinal cord infarction, which hit the healthy-as-a-bull Tasmanian Devil two weeks ago as he prepared to fly to Alaska to film a bear hunt for his hit show on The Versus Network.

“They’ve been giving Tred a 60-percent chance of walking,” said John Iso, Barta’s partner in Barta-Iso Aviation in Montauk, New York. “One-third of the people who have this condition recover completely, one-third will have some long-term effects, and one-third will remain the same. I’ve known Tred for 40 years. I think Tred Barta will be walking again within a couple of months.”

Initial onset & diagnosis: Barta’s condition was caused by a blood clot in the spine, or one of the arteries that feed the spinal cord. It has no advance symptoms, and started as a simple soreness in his left leg shortly after a horseback ride with his wife Annie near their home in Eagle, west of Denver.

Barta woke up the next morning with what he describes as a “gimp”, which left his left leg partially numb and unable to support the weight of his body.

A visit to a clinic in nearby Vail returned a diagnosis of a pinched nerve in his lower lumbar. Barta was treated by a kinesiologist and received cortisone shots, and, over the next 48 hours, felt some improvement in the strength in his leg.

The morning he was to depart for Alaska, though, that all changed.

“The day I’m to leave for Alaska, I wake up in the morning and I’ve lost 90 percent of my left leg,” Barta told Bowsite.com. “I go to see the kinesiologist, I’m driving down I-70 in Vail … I have such an unbelievable pain in my left bowel, the left side of (the) groin, I don’t know what to do. I can’t drive. I turn the car sideways in the middle of I-70 and put the flashers on, and I know someone has got to stop.”

Barta was escorted to his kinesiologist’s office by a Colorado state trooper, and then quickly rushed to the emergency room of Vail Hospital, where he had eight times the normal amount of urine removed from his bladder via catheter.

“My bowels are shutting down, my left leg goes, and in front of me in absolute horror, my right-leg sensation is going,” Barta told Bowsite.com.

Barta was transported via ambulance to Denver Health Medical Center, where he underwent a battery of neurological tests before ultimately being diagnosed with a spinal infarction.

The battle had just begun.

The battle begins: The first official media out of Denver Health on May 22 was very upbeat, something you might expect from a man who, in his own words: “Grabs life by the throat and squeezes every last breath out of it”.

“Mr. Barta has suffered a spinal cord stroke which is a very uncommon condition. However, he has applied his uniquely vigorous and positive attitude in responding to his illness,” said Michael Earnest, M.D., neurologist, Denver Health. “Tred continues to do things the ‘Barta Way’ working hard and assisting in his daily recovery process. We look forward to his continued progress as he moves to the next level of care. He has earned the respect and admiration of all of us who are caring for him.”

Barta was upbeat and positive the day before, when he told me: “I have some upper-body strength. I just drew my 60-pound bow in my hospital bed. My spirts are high! I want everyone to have a GREAT weekend, and to appreciate what they have (in life)."

He felt so good, in fact, that we loosely arranged a live radio interview for that Saturday, for Barta, who, per his selfless attitude, wished to deliver a pep-talk to the Pacific Northwest and to help promote the OTC. We failed to connect with his room that morning, but simply chalked it up to what was undoubtedly a tumultuous hospital schedule. Little did we know that Tred Barta was fighting the battle of his life.

“Tred's biggest problem at present is lack of sleep,” Dean Travis Clarke of Sport Fishing Magazine reported on May 25. “Hospitals just won't let you. He's been undergoing a legion of tests trying to determine the cause of his spinal stroke with no determination so far. He complained of pain and nothing among the almost 30 different pain medications helped the pain and his body hated it as well, resulting in allergic reactions.”

Barta’s wife Annie summed it up very quietly and succinctly when she answered the phone in his room early the following week: “He’s taken a pretty tough turn.”

Fighting through the dark: Anyone who’s watched “The Best and Worst of Tred Barta” gets a glimpse of the kind of kinetic spirit that surrounds Barta. It’s amplified even more when you speak to him: he’s loud and outgoing, and always willing to serve up his thoughts and opinions.

A shrinking violet he’s not.

That’s why I’m taken aback by the voice that I hear on my voicemail early Tuesday morning.

“Hey Joel, Tred Barta. Hey, I’m sorry I missed our interview last weekend. I, uh, I was in a little trouble. Matter of fact, I don’t even know if I was conscious when we were supposed to do the interview ...”

He sounds exhausted, his voice hoarse and quiet. Even without talking to him, it’s easy to tell that he’s been through an incredibly physical challenge. But as he tells Bowsite.com, he had also just endured the most difficult emotional days of his life as well.

“It was the worst nightmare you could imagine,” Barta told Bowsite.com. “Guess what, boys? Absolutely paralyzed from the belly-button down after the third day at Denver health. Here I am a healthy, virile, Alpha male, and I’m now going through a situation that tests every bit of philosophy that you have. I’m in the darkest, deepest hole that you could ever imagine. I’m not there now, but I want to describe it to you because it happened. I sat in a dark (hospital) room after only four days having no legs and cried like a baby. Cried and cried uncontrollably that (my) entire life is over.”

Spirits lifted: Barta’s dark days, however, are behind him.

“I think I’ve turned the corner of how low you can get,” he says.

Following the initial week-and-a-half stay at Denver Health, he was transferred to Craig Rehab to start a lenghty rehabilitation and recovery process. Regarded as one of the best physical rehab clinics in the United States, the facility is, according to Barta, the launching pad for the rest of his life. Whatever that may be.

“This is going to be the hardest battle of my life,” he said. “I’ve been in bed for 12 days – today is my second day in a wheelchair, and I’m ready to fight. Shaving this morning, cleaning myself, getting ready was a monumental effort. But I’m going to fight my way out of here, crawl my way out of here, wheelchair my way out of here …

“What is SO important to me is that people understand that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to go, and you’ve got to just deal with what you have on the table when it’s presented to you and be the best you can be. You cannot get through a situation like I have been through without friends, loved ones and family. You can’t get through it. It can’t be done. (They) are your strength, your backbone.”

Part II: I'll post the second part of Barta Battles early next week, after Tred's May 30 appearance on Northwest Wild Country.

-JS