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Woman hiding under blankets next to black bear
There’s a well-established protocol concerning what you should do when you come across a bear in the wild. The same cannot be said for a situation where you wake up to find one standing in your bedroom after climbing through a window, and a teenager in Colorado may have escaped serious injury by hiding under the blankets when faced with that exact scenario.
I have covered dozens of incidents involving close encounters between humans and bears over the course of 2026, and while I can’t necessarily say they’ve represented an accurate distribution of incidents across America, it doesn’t seem like any state has produced more of them this year than Colorado.
The Centennial State is home to an estimated 20,000 black bears, and data that’s been collected there shows there’s been a significant uptick in the number of reports involving worrisome behavior, including attacks, residential foraging, and home and vehicle invasions, compared to 2025.
Officials expect those numbers to rise as the animals begin to gear up for hibernation, and the total grew by one earlier this week after a teenager was subjected to a pretty harrowing ordeal.
A 17-year-old in Colorado was saved by the blankets she hid underneath after a bear invaded her bedroom
The end of summer marks the start of Hyperphagia Season for bears, which spend a few months scouring for as much food as they can track down while packing on pounds as they prepare to hibernate when the coldest part of the year rolls around.
The animals tend to be more aggressive toward humans during that period and a bit more daring than they usually are in their quest for a meal, which was certainly the case with one at the center of a recent incident that unfolded in Durango, Colorado.
According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, a 17-year-old girl left her window ajar before going to sleep on Saturday night and was awoken around 2 A..M by a bear that tore through the screen and made its way into her bedroom.
A press release recounted what transpired from there. saying:
The woman said she pulled up her blankets and hid when she saw the bear fully enter the room. The bear reportedly then walked over to the bedside table and began to sniff the woman’s head under the blankets.
The woman made a noise, and she said the bear abruptly made a huffing sound and then quickly swiped her as she lay under the covers. She said she felt the bear’s paw hit her stomach.
She understandably screamed at that point, which led to the bear retreating to the foot of her bed before leaving through the window. However, it immediately climbed back inside but ultimately exited for good after she continued her verbal assault.
Officials who examined the teen documented “three scratch marks the bear left on her stomach” along with bruising in the area, and the District Manager noted “the woman is very lucky she had multiple blankets covering her when the bear swiped her.”
Another residence in the area was infiltrated by a bear on Monday, and while it’s unclear if it was the same one, traps were deployed in the hopes of capturing the culprit(s).
I can only hope I’ll never have to deploy the blanket strategy myself, but it’s good to know it’s not going to hurt if you ever end up in the same situation.