A young brown bear got himself into quite a “hair-raising” situation when he got stuck up a utility pole in Wilcox, Arizona.
Luckily for the bear, a worker with a utility company spotted the bear in trouble and notified their supervisor for help. Lineman Warner Newbauer and Apprentice Lineman Gallego of Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Co-op were sent out to see if they could help the animal.
The pair shared video of their rescue footage with ViralHog and Newbauer wrote how the bear’s life was seriously at risk:
“When we got there we found that the bear was in a very dangerous situation and could get itself electrocuted at any time. The lines near the bear’s head were energized with 7200 volts. If he was to touch one of those it would have killed him instantly.”
They immediately cut the power to the lines and then returned to the bear on the pole. The utility workers approached the bear from the basket of their boom truck.
“As we were setting up our bucket truck the bear was watching us from the top of the pole, but when I started moving up towards him in the bucket he covered his eyes with his front leg as if he was trying to hide. When I got up close to him, maybe 6 feet away, I started talking to him, and then he looked up at me.”
Newbauer began to talk to the bear from around 6 feet away and used an 8-foot fibreglass stick to try and coax him down. The bear didn’t like that too much and kept grabbing the stick and biting it. But after a while, Newbauer was able to get the bear into a better position, “and then he climbed down the pole on his own and ran away.”
They guess that the bear was a young male around 100 pounds.
It’s not the first time a bear has gotten stuck on top of power lines in Arizona. In May 2021 (just a month earlier than this event), an even bigger brown bear was found atop two power poles in Arizona. Although this bear looked like he was enjoying his time hanging around.
Thankfully, he too, got down on his own.
