It’s always exciting (and not in a good way) when a bear wakes up from anesthesia…and is not contained. Granted the drugs we use do not allow for spontaneous recovery, but when the person with the drugs is nowhere to be found or downright stupid, then we have a problem. Last week, a six hundred pound grizzly bear lifted his head and growled at the people working on him. Not to worry, he was groggy and we bumped him with more sedative. Everything was fine. But I was reminded of an incident that happened many years ago that didn’t go quite so smoothly.
My superiors—I use that term loosely—were transporting two grizzly cubs that weighed roughly one hundred pounds each to a local vet hospital. The cubs were fine, just getting a checkup. They were sedated in large dog crates in the back of a truck. I followed behind in my BRAND NEW Subaru Outback.
Let me be clear from the get go. I was new to this whole thing and therefore NOT in charge of drugging. Some dumbass guy, who will now be referred to as Dumbass, was.
When the first bear was done with her checkup, Dumbass, two other women and I wheeled her, on a gurney, to the parking lot where the dog crate awaited.
And then a strange thing happened…
The bear woke up.
The two women and I jumped on the bear and held her down, thinking Dumbass would bump her with some more drug. But nooooo, Dumbass panicked. He couldn’t get it together enough to find the drugs let alone administer them.
So what did we do?
That’s right, the three ladies shoved a very awake, very pissed off grizzly bear into a dog crate. But we couldn’t get the door shut…because the bear tore it off the crate. So we held the door over the opening, trying not to get bitten.
As if that weren’t enough, Dumbass couldn’t find the keys to the truck.
So what did we do?
You guessed it. We shoved an awake and barely contained grizzly bear into my BRAND NEW Subaru! The two women and Dumbass sat in the back, trying to keep the bear contained, while I raced through 25mph speed zones at 60mph to get to the holding facility. And what does Dumbass say?
“Slow down. You’re going to get pulled over.”
“Bring on the police,” I yelled and stepped on the gas. “They can help us unload this thing.”
