Watch this bear chase a man across town

It was quite a big fright for this pedestrian who was walking along a packed road on March 17 in Nizhnevartovsk, Western Siberia. As he was chatting on the phone on a snow-covered pavement, the man came face to face with an obviously disoriented bear, who had just escaped from a hotel. This is a scene that most people might struggle to imagine happening anywhere else but in Russia. It was filmed by several motorists, powerless onlookers of this crazy chase.

Attacked by a bear in the middle of a city

At first remaining stoic in the face of the massive fuzzball, the man finally started hightailing it after the animal began to charge. He tried to lose it over several dozen yards, all the while being filmed by impromptu reporters, before taking a chance and crossing the road to definitively escape the predator. The bear tracked him down, but was then hit by a bus, as you can see in the video below.

Everything ends for the best

Fortunately, more fear than harm was done for the animal, which was finally 'apprehended' by the police after the collision. The bear was put to sleep and then taken in charge by animal specialists. It turned out to be a female—it was kept by its owner in a hotel in the city, along with another specimen.

Rather than putting her down, local authorities decided, under pressure from the locals, to look for a suitable place to welcome her. Investigators are now trying to determine how the animal was able to escape from the hotel where it was kept, and if its living conditions in the establishment were legal and humane.