I hope this truck driver in Alaska asked for a pay raise.
There’s no amount of money that would make being chased by a grizzly bear worth the trouble. In my opinion, you’ve got to call it a career as a trucker if you are forced to climb atop your big rig to avoid being eaten by a couple of feisty grizzly bears. Maybe that’s just me though…
This just goes to show that there are a lot of tough people doing thankless jobs out there. When the average person thinks of semi-truck drivers, the first thing that comes to mind is probably how much big rigs aggravate us on the interstate. In reality, 18-wheelers play an intricate role in the supply chain, and drivers of the trucks face long hours out on the road.
Evidently, the job isn’t done even when the truck is in park. This semi-truck driver in Alaska probably thought he was getting a break from the ins and outs of the job, only to then come face to face with some sizable bruins. The guy apparently didn’t have time to dive into the cab of his truck, so he opted to clim atop the truck itself to avoid a grizzly running right at him.
Luckily, the grizzly bear that honed in on the driver didn’t know how to use stairs, which were right there on the side of the large vehicle ready for use. If the bruin would have utilized the stairs, this video probably would have had a much more somber, violent ending.
As the man climbed for his life, he shouted, “GO ON! GET!” at the top of his lungs. That ended up being enough to deter the grizzly bears as they ran on past the semi truck and off into the distance. I’ve got a feeling that the driver had to take some time to get his heart rate down after this one… and I imagine he yelled at his coworkers for not doing much to help him out.
Take a look:
Absolutely terrifying.
Fortunately, the driver appeared to be okay physically after the incident, though he was probably pretty rattled mentally. Viewers of the video were scared to death on his behalf, but not to the point where they couldn’t make some jokes about the frightening encounter:
“Calling the supervisor from the top of that truck to discuss my raise.”
“What’s worse than having one grizzly bear after you? Two of ’em.”
“Dude in the forklift was like ‘man, that’s a you problem.'”
“Osha probably fined the driver for not wearing a safety harness.”
“Imagine working somewhere that at any given moment, a bear might decide you make a good snack.”
