A skier being chased down a slope by a brown bear in Romania managed to keep his cool and remain upright as riders on the chairlifts above yelled down, “Faster, faster! Come on, the bear is chasing you! Faster! God forbid, don’t look back!”
Eventually, a shrewd move allowed the skier to escape without injury. He shimmied out of his backpack and dropped it on the slope while continuing down the run. The bear aborted the chase to check out the backpack.
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“Authorities say that move probably saved his life because it distracted the charging bear long enough to escape,” the ABC News reporter said.
The incident occurred Jan. 23 at the Clabucet Ski Slope in Predeal, the highest town in Romania located in Brasov County, Transylvania, a Romanian news outlet reported according to Heavy.com.
Officials at the ski resort had received calls about the bear’s presence. They were trying to locate the bear to move it away from the resort, Digi24 reported.
A bear spotted in the same area last year was safely relocated. In other cases, the ATVs used to track bears down created enough noise to scare them off.
