Pennsylvania parents are on edge after what happened at a small-town dollar store.
An 11-year-old boy's ordinary Monday turned into a nightmare.
And a scary encounter with a bear at the dollar store turned this boy into an instant legend.
Cole Frazee was just stopping by the Family Dollar in Markleysburg with his dad to grab a few items when his normal Monday turned into the stuff of nightmares.
The 11-year-old went outside to see what was taking his father so long.
That's when he locked eyes with a black bear staring right back at him.
"I was like, 'I'm probably going to get eaten by a bear,'" Frazee told CBS Pittsburgh.¹
Frazee thought the bear would turn around and lumber off into the woods like a normal wild animal.
Instead, it charged straight at him.
Security footage captures the moment a bear hunts an 11-year-old through a dollar store
"When it runs after me, I turn around, I run in the store, I'm screaming and stuff. The thing was like a foot and a half away from me," Frazee said.¹
The bear followed him straight through the front doors of the Family Dollar.
Frazee raced up and down the aisles with his heart pounding, desperately trying to escape the 200 to 600-pound predator.
"I took a left and the bear went straight," he explained.¹
The only other person in the store was a cashier.
Frazee ran to her and they both jumped on top of the counter to get a better view of where the bear was prowling.
The moment the animal turned and walked toward the back of the store, they saw their only chance to escape.
"She grabbed her coat, the keys and the phone and we ran out of there. When we ran out of there, we all got in the car," Frazee said.¹
Pennsylvania's bear problem is spiraling out of control
Surveillance footage captured the terrifying moment just seconds after Frazee and the cashier made their escape.
The bear leaped over the front counter — right where the boy had just been standing — and continued roaming through the store.
The animal stayed inside for about 10 minutes before finally finding its way back outside.
Sitting in the locked car, Frazee finally felt safe.
"I was relieved," he said. "It was definitely a crazy experience."¹
This isn't some isolated incident in the middle of nowhere.
Pennsylvania's black bear population has exploded from around 4,000 in the 1970s to an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 today.²
That's a five-fold increase while the human population only grew 8 percent.
Bears are now showing up in nearly every county across Pennsylvania — including areas where they were rarely seen before.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission admits bear sightings and conflicts have increased dramatically as the population expands into suburban areas.
"Bears are actively searching for food this time of year, and that leads to sometimes dangerous and unexpected encounters," the Game Commission told CBS Pittsburgh.¹
Translation: more bears mean more chances your kid gets chased through a dollar store by a predator that can weigh 600 pounds.
Just this year in January, a man in Jim Thorpe was attacked by a rabid black bear that bit and scratched him before a neighbor shot it.³
The bear tested positive for rabies — a death sentence if left untreated.
In March 2024, a Butler Township woman named Lee Ann Galante was mauled in her own backyard by a mother bear protecting her cubs.⁴
She suffered a broken nose, broken facial bones, dozens of staples to her scalp, and puncture wounds across her neck and arms.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission only sees one or two bear attacks per year, but that doesn't account for the thousands of property damage complaints, home invasions for food, and terrifying encounters that don't result in injuries.
Bear complaints in the 13 northeast counties jumped from 600 in the late 1990s to 1,100 by 2002 — and that was decades ago.⁵
The population has only grown since then.
Cole Frazee became an instant celebrity when word spread about what happened.
His classmates couldn't believe he'd actually outrun a bear.
"That's like one in a million right there," Frazee said.¹
The boy who outran a bear might sound like a cool story to tell at school.
But for parents across Pennsylvania, it's a warning sign that the state's wildlife management policies have created a dangerous situation in neighborhoods where families should feel safe.
When a child can't step outside a dollar store without being hunted by a predator, something's gone terribly wrong.
¹ Shelley Bortz, "Shocking video shows black bear chasing boy into Pennsylvania Family Dollar," CBS Pittsburgh, November 17, 2025.
² Visit PA Great Outdoors, "Black Bears-101," July 29, 2025.
³ NBC News, "Bear that attacked man in Pennsylvania had rabies, officials confirm," January 24, 2025.
⁴ Outdoor Life, "Black Bear Attacks Pennsylvania Woman in Her Own Backyard," March 7, 2024.
⁵ Pennsylvania Game Commission, "Black Bear Population Growth," Pennsylvania.gov.
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