School principal James Marsh thought it was just another Monday morning in Summersville County, West Virginia when he went out to unlock the dumpster behind the school. It was early, just 7:15 a.m. He might have just had his first cup of coffee. From the look of the video now going viral on social media, opening the single, fairly small dumpster was a normal — if mundane — part of his daily routine. The thing is, there are about 13,000 black bears in the Mountain State, which works out to 236 bears per county.
Anyway, just as Mr. Marsh has unlocked the dumpster and is sliding the locking bar out of the way, a bear pops the lid open and sticks its head out. Marsh is all of 2 feet away when he realizes that there’s a bear in the dumpster. The principal hightails it away. Meanwhile, the bear — which is not huge but at least 200 pounds, certainly big enough to kill you — explodes out of the dumpster and gallops off the other way. At the exact same moment, a woman starts to open the back door to the school, sees what’s happening, and decides to duck. A moment later, she reopens the door and Mr. Marsh returns to the frame. He’s winded and places both hands on his knees while he catches his breath.
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Apparently, the principal did not give the bear any detention or write a note to the bear’s parents. The state DNR reportedly changed the lock of the dumpster for a more secure one later in the day. If you’ve ever tried to open a locked dumpster, you know it’s not easy. So the real question is how the bear got in there in the first place.
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