Trucker narrowly avoids grizzly attack after running over cub 

A truck driver escaped a dangerous situation without injury after running over a grizzly bear cub in Montana recently. 

The truck driver was traveling along Highway 191 through Gallatin Canyon on May 26th at around 5 a.m. when he struck and killed a grizzly bear cub. The collision caused the airbags to deploy, and tore off the truck’s air lines, so the trucker stopped and got out of his truck to call his company and wait for a tow truck. The driver then decided to walk to a nearby lodge to wait for the tow, and that’s when a passing tour guide noticed a mother grizzly nearby. 

I can’t believe she didn’t attack him when he was walking down to the Cinnamon Lodge,” said David Reeves, a Yellowstone National Park tour guide, to Ravalli Republic News. “I don’t know how he made it away from his vehicle to walk those couple hundred yards down the road with mom standing right there.”

Reeves says he initially offered the trucker a ride, but the driver declined. However, when Reeves saw the mother grizzly, he knew he had to go stop the trucker from walking any farther. 

“I took off and started driving down the road,” Reeves recalled. “And when I got to his truck there was a big grizzly bear in the middle of the road. She was over the carcass of the cub. And as I pulled up she kind of bluff charged at the vehicle. So I quick turned around because I was like, ‘There’s no way I can let that guy walk into that. She’ll kill him.’”

“So I drove him back down to his truck and showed him mom and showed him the cub. Then I turned around and positioned the vehicle so he could safely get into the cab of his truck. As I drove away the sow was starting to walk up the hill to the west.”

The dead bear cub was eventually picked up by the Montana Department of Transportation and given to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks in Bozeman; and the semi truck was eventually towed.