A skier in Colorado had a close call this past weekend.
A video taken Sunday by an employee at the Keystone Ski Resort in Keystone, Colorado, shows skier Brian O’Neal coming down the slopes at the same time as a black bear appears out of nowhere and runs in his direction.
Luckily, the skier managed to avoid a closer encounter and the bear disappeared into a nearby forest.
“All of a sudden from the right side of my eye, side-vision, it was like, ‘Oh crap, here comes something,’” O’Neal told Summit Daily News. “Usually, you might see moose up there, but I’ve never seen a bear.”
In an interview with Storyful, the resort employee who took the video said that he and some friends had gone out to look for the bear after hearing of people having encounters with the animal.
“We found the bear while he was walking through the trees of connecting runs,” Nathan Lynch said. “So, me and my friends went to the run that the bear was heading to next and waited for him to run out. When he did, I thankfully had my camera out.”
Watch the video here
O’Neal told Summit Daily News that the incident happened on his first ski run of the day.
“It happened so quick,” O’Neal said. “I was just trying not to run into it.”
It was the last day for skiing at the resort for the season, the outlet reported.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Watch as Colorado skier almost crashes into black bear on the slopes
