A bear jumped out of a school bin and gave a headteacher the scare of his life in the US, causing him to run for his dear life.
CCTV clip shows James Marsh, who is a principal at a primary school in West Virginia casually unlocking the lid to the big wheelie bin outside Zela Elementary School, in Nicholas County.
The black bear, who had clearly been stuck in the bin, suddenly lifted the lid and popped its head out.
Mr Marsh quickly sprinted away while the bear, seemingly equally as scared, leapt out of the bin and ran in the opposite direction.
In the middle of all this, a staff member opened the school’s storeroom door, saw what was happening and instantly shut herself in again.
She re-emerged seconds later to see that the bear had fled and Mr Marsh was okay.
They could both be seen smiling as the woman placed her hand on her chest and Mr Marsh bent over and put his hands on his knees while he took a moment.
‘It was not how I planned to start my week at all!’ Mr Marsh told the PA news agency.
‘Apparently he came in over the weekend and unknown to me had climbed in there.
‘I was unlocking the bar so we could put trash in the dumpster for the day and I just never dreamed that there would be anything inside it, especially with it locked.
‘So, as you can tell, it was a complete surprise. It was amazing that I never heard anything, there was no noise inside, I had several staff members that had come to work that morning and walked right beside the dumpster on the way into the building.
‘All of a sudden it let out a big growl and came out of there, and it scared me!’
Mr Marsh said a bear had visited in the night around a week before, prompting the school to install a lock bar on the bin to protect it.
Having checked surveillance video after his ursine encounter, Mr Marsh confirmed it had bent the metal bar enough to squeeze in and out several times over the weekend.
West Virginia Department of Natural Resources has since modified the lid to make it more secure.
The Nicholas County Board of Education posted the clip on Facebook and joked: ‘Who says principals don’t deserve hazard pay?’
Dozens of people commented on the video, saying the interaction was ‘priceless’.
Alyssa Cline-Ritchie wrote: ‘Mr Marsh should’ve got the day off. Running from a bear before 7.30am has to be a free day.’
Matthew Farley joked: ‘Mr Marsh need to leave early to change his pants.’
