A Wisconsin family had the fortune of good timing when they came across a young bear that needed their help.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported the Hurt family was heading back home after fishing all day on Marsh-Miller Lake on June 28 when Tricia Hurt saw something in the water.
Her son, Brady Hurt, 26, thought it was a rock until it moved. Brady Hurt’s 52-year-old father, Brian Hurt, thought it could have been a black Labrador retriever.
It was a bear.
“We got closer and I said, ‘Yeah, that's a bear that got hungry and got its head stuck in a bucket,’” Tricia Hurt told the publication.
Specifically, it was a plastic container that once had puffed cheese balls in it.
The black bear was struggling to breathe with its head in the container.
The Hurt family jumped into action, catching the whole thing on video that was posted to Facebook the next day.
As the Hurts turn the boat toward the cub, he begins to swim away. After a few more attempts, Brian Hurt was able to successfully pull the container off of the bear’s head.
The bear can be seen shaking its head and swimming away. According to Tricia Hurt, it made it to the shore.
“We honestly believe if we hadn’t run into that bear, it wouldn’t have made it to shore,” Tricia Hurt said. “It was so disoriented, it didn't know where shore was and it was so tired.”
The video has been viewed more than 1.7 million times and has been shared more than 24,000 times.
According to Hurt, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources had been contacted multiple times about the bear, but the wooded area made it hard to track, CNN reported.
