A teacher preparing her classroom for the first day of school had a surprise visitor: a wild bear.
Elaine Salmon, an elementary school teacher in Pine Mountain Club, California, said she left her classroom Tuesday evening to make copies in the school office ahead of the upcoming start of the new school year.
When she returned, she said a bear was in her classroom.
"I opened my classroom door and there was this bear charging towards the door," Salmon told ABC Bakersfield affiliate KERO-TV. "I ... closed the door, locked the bear in there, and then I went back to the office to call my husband."
Once the bear was locked inside the classroom, Salmon said she was more concerned about the safety of her room, in which she teaches third, fourth and fifth grade students, according to the school's website.
"My first thought was, is it gonna do any damage?" she recalled. "I have a brand new floor and I already have my decorations up."
When Salmon's husband Ian Sawrey arrived, the couple began banging on the classroom's windows to get the bear's attention.
Video footage captured by Sawrey shows the bear wandering between classroom tables and shelves.
After a few minutes of banging on the windows, Salmon said she and her husband got the attention of the bear, who walked out of the classroom door and into the wooded mountains surrounding the school.
While the bear was in the classroom, the only damage it caused was to an earthquake emergency box, which contained food, according to Salmon.
Salmon said while bears are known to be in the area, the animals have not approached the school while students are present.
The slogan for the school, located around 90 miles north of Los Angeles, is "home of the bears," according to its website.
