12-Year-Old Italian Boy Calmly Escapes a Bear Lurking Right Behind Him

What would you do if you came into contact with a bear? For us, the answer would probably be to scream and yell and run away with our hands flailing in the air. Clearly, we’re not the outdoorsy kind.

Not surprisingly, freaking out is the last thing you’re supposed to do if you see a bear. Even 12-year-old Alessandro Breda knew that. That’s because he had recently seen a video on how to react if you see a bear.

“I’d learned that if you yell, the bear becomes agitated and becomes much more aggressive,” he said.

Good thing too, because the preteen actually did come into contact with a bear—and he’s alive and well because of his calm demeanor in how he reacted to it.

The interaction occurred while he was on a hike in the Adamello-Brenta Nature Park in northern Italy, and was captured in a video by his mother, Loris Calliari.

“Come, Ale, come,” she said in the video of her watching a bear lurk behind her young son. “Don’t turn your back to him.”

Alessandro showed zero fear as he walked ahead of the bear, doing as he was instructed.

The bear apparently came out of nowhere when the two, along with a few other of their family members, were picking buds of the mugo pine tree, which are used to make syrup.

“I’m pretty sure that the bear had been sleeping, because we hadn’t seen it coming up,” Alessandro’s father said.

Of course, there’s one thing you can’t help but think when you see a video of a bear quietly lurking behind a 12-year-old—why would the family not try to protect him? His family says it’s because they knew Alessandro was calm and not in any real danger.

“Alessandro wandered off a few metres and then we saw him coming out of the bushes followed by a bear,” said his uncle, Federico. “We were obviously alarmed but he was really calm.”

And calm he was. In fact, even after the incident, Alessandro says it was one of the best days of his life!

“I really hoped something like that would happen,” he said. “When I saw the bear pop up from the bushes I was really excited.”

Okay, we can’t exactly relate, but we’re glad Alessandro made it out alive, and that his dream of meeting a bear face to face finally came true!

If you want to bite on your fingernails in fear, check out the video of the bear prowling behind Alessandro below!

Are you equally as surprised by Alessandro’s calm presence? What would you have done in this situation?