Principal James Marsh of Zela Elementary in West Virginia had an encounter of the wild kind on Monday morning when he came face-to-face with a dumpster-diving black bear. The incident, captured on CCTV footage, quickly went viral and left both the educator and the furry forager shaking in their boots.
As Marsh unlocked the school’s dumpster for the cafeteria staff, he was met with a colossal black bear head staring him directly in the face. “Things go in [a dumpster], but you just don’t expect anything that big to come out of it,” Marsh told reporters.
In the footage, Marsh and the bear can be seen locking eyes for a brief moment before the principal takes off running in one direction, while the bear hops out of the dumpster and bolts off in the opposite direction. “I have not been that close to one, and I doubt that many people have,” Marsh said.
The principal had started locking the dumpster after noticing the bear roaming around the trash, hoping his efforts would deter the animal from returning. Little did he know, the dumpster had become the bear’s hibernation spot.
“I didn’t even get to open the lid. It just popped out of there like a jack-in-the-box. It let out a pretty loud growl or roar actually, and that was about the most intimidating thing of the whole event,” Marsh said.
The incident left Marsh and the elementary school staff and students shaken but also thoroughly entertained. “The students at the school, they wanted to see it, and I showed it to all of them. They thought it was just hilarious,” Marsh said.
The district has since sent out workers to modify the locks on the dumpster, hoping to avoid any future bear scares. “We want that guy to go find his meals someplace else,” Marsh joked.
In the end, it was a funny and unforgettable moment for all involved, reminding us that sometimes the unexpected can be both terrifying and hilarious at the same time.
The original video can be found on the Nicholas County Board of Education Facebook page.