Bear with me, this is a strange one.
A black bear has gone viral in a video posted on social media. It did what bears tend to do - explore around where they shouldn't. But, as reported by OutKick, the bear ended up getting itself locked in a Tennessee hotel's bathroom.
Videos by Wide Open Country
A police report detailed the incident. Police officers responded to the bizarre call at around 2:33am on Friday, May 8. They had been called to the Quality Inn & Suites in downtown Gatlinburg. Officer Quayvaughn McCollum wrote, "[an employee] observed a bear enter an exterior bathroom and lock itself inside."
Pretty standard stuff, as far as bears go. But the way the officers handled it is even more legendary. Video footage shows police officers very carefully unlocking the door, before the bear, seemingly confused, just... wanders out of the bathroom to freedom.
Everyone seems to be pretty scared of the bear, though, even if it didn't really care about anyone's presence. Bystanders rushed out the way as it limbered out, and the police officers were doing their best to deter it from coming back into the bathroom.
The Bear Wreaked (Not So Much) Havoc on the Bathroom
Not in the way you're thinking, though!
You'd expect a bear in an enclosed space to ruin everything around it as it got more stressed. But, strangely enough, it only smashed a mirror. Of course, in cases like these, the police need to note down everything that happened, so there's a pretty funny line in the police report.
Officers observed "a broken mirror shattered on the floor, which the bear had caused," in the Tennessee hotel bathroom. And that came with an estimated shocking property damage of $50 (not that the it can pay, though!)
Commentors on social media poked fun at the animal. One wrote in reference to the broken mirror, "Yogi is going to have 7 years bad luck. No pickanick basket for him!?"
Another commentor warned of the true power of bears, and was surprised it wasn't more violent. "I once watched a Bear in a campground in the High Sierras rip his claws through a hard plastic large cooler like it was butter. Imagine what he could do to a human!"
