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Black Bear Destroys Car After Getting Trapped Inside Before Escaping Through Windshield

Don’t let their fuzzy little ears and black button noses fool you. Black bears are just about as destructive as they are adorable. And we have proof of that after one black bear in Buncombe County, North Carolina became trapped in a car. Amid its frightening experience, the beast completely destroyed the vehicle, escaping through the front windshield.

One of Buncombe County’s families woke up one night to find an unusual sight. ABC 13 News reports that around midnight resident Ashley McGowin’s neighbors heard a random honking vehicle. Around 6:30 a.m., McGowin went to let her dogs out. She then realized a mother bear had been trapped in her car for about 6 hours. It was around that time McGowin filmed the bruin punching its way through the front windshield and making its escape.

The hole, seen in photos on the news outlet’s website, appears rather small for a bear to finagle through. However, McGowin reported that she was able to film the last few moments of the bear’s escape. Afterward, the black bear climbed atop the car roof and then made off with her two cubs.

The family’s insurance company deemed the massacred vehicle a total loss. But, the NC mom didn’t seem extremely perturbed by the destruction. Instead, she said, “It was very distressing for me to see the mama bear in distress and suffering inside my car.”

The outlet reports that while it remains a mystery as to how the bear got into the vehicle, its entrapment could have been a result of recent high winds slamming the door shut behind her.

After the black bear made her escape from the car, McGowin said, “It was like she was happy to be united with her cubs, and they just wandered off.”

Black Bears Versus Cars:

While the McGowins woke to the shock of a lifetime when they discovered a full-grown mother black bear in their car, it’s hardly the first time this sort of thing has happened.

Last summer, there were multiple reports across the country of black bears becoming trapped in peoples’ cars. And on most occasions, the vehicle was pretty much destroyed.

In Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a Georgia teacher, Mary Jane Yarbrough, who’d come to the city to take an art class in preparation for the arrival of her students in the fall, went home with quite a tale.

Once again, just like the McGowin’s neighbors, Yarbrough was rudely awoken when she heard honking around 6 a.m. amid her program.

Of the experience, she said, “I open the door…and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, someone is in there. Someone is stuck in my car!’”

Perhaps not someone, but something?

Yarbrough further shared, “The bear actually like smacked the window and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a bear.” She laughed in disbelief.

Again like the McGowins, the black bear completely demolished the teacher’s Camry. She said, “He ripped the dash, my airbag, the radio is out, he went through my glove box…”

Note to all Outsiders: if you live in bear country, you might want to lock your doors.