Time and again, the Sunset Beach Police Department warns us to lock our cars to prevent break-ins and thefts.
As a colleague pointed out, how hard is it to push a button on a key fob?
Yet people repeatedly fail to heed this advice, especially on the island, and the next thing they know they’re filing a police report about some mobile thief intruding into their vehicles.
Just last week, my sister Jane’s granddaughter, Mary Jane, learned this the hard way when a black bear burglarized her (unlocked) car during the overnight hours while she was visiting Tennessee.
She was first alerted to this around 6 a.m. with her car horn sounding off. Puzzled, and probably still half asleep, she phoned my other sister, who lives in the house behind her grandmother’s cabin, to ask why someone might be honking at dawn.
Venturing outside to the street where she had left her (unlocked) 2009 Toyota for the night, she was soon taking cell phone footage of a bear trapped inside the four-door sedan.
Not only had he managed to open one of the doors to get inside the car, the door had closed behind the bear, who was apparently lured in by some Luna Bars left inside the car. Then, done with the food and folly he had found, he started tooting for someone to let him out.
“So there’s a bear in my car — oh, my,” Mary Jane narrates as a blurry image of the furry bruin appears at the front passenger-side window in the video, which went slightly viral on Facebook and YouTube.
Her next video shows a Gatlinburg, Tenn., police officer dashing over to that side of the car and banging on it to finally prod the bear to escape on the other side and skedaddle into the woods to freedom in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
For the officer, it looked like just another routine bear call.
For Mary Jane, her car troubles had just begun.
Early last Tuesday morning, minutes after this bear scare, my sister texted a photo of the car’s demolished interior left by the agitated bear. Judging by the ripped-up seats, dangling rubber seals and split doors, I think it’s a goner.
Jane later informed me the bear also left a “surprise,” answering the age-old question about bears “going” in the woods — or in any vehicles they may get trapped in near the woods. She believed that alone was reason enough for the car to be declared a total loss.
We wondered whether Mary Jane’s car insurance had a decent bear clause. I found out later that it did. During his unfortunate entrapment the bear caused enough damage for the car to be declared totaled.
They also learned there’s a shortage of cars this year, apparently because of the pandemic and a chips deficiency — not the bear kind.
There were no available rental cars. On Friday, Mary Jane’s mom came up to drive her back to Georgia to start shopping for a replacement car.
The photo of the damages is a stark reminder to steer clear of bears.
Maybe Sunset Beach doesn’t have as many bears as the Smokies, but it wasn’t that many years ago a bear got hit by a car on N.C. 904, aka Seaside Road. So we know they’re out there trying to find what’s left of their forest.
My niece’s unfortunate incident is a lesson for us all to remember, once again, to lock our doors. Thieves and bears are just a handle-pull away.
Laura Lewis is editor of the Beacon. Reach her at (910) 754-6890 or editor@brunswickbeacon.com.
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