This is probably the funniest thing I have seen to date on
the Learning Channel. They did a special on this guy, I was
laughing my ass off the whole time. Troy Hurtubise was attacked by a bear in
1984 and came up with the idea to invent a
suit that would prevent bear
attacks. He's gone through several designs and ended up with a suit made of
titanium and chain mail with air bladders inside to cushion from
impact. The suit weighs 147 pounds, stands 7 feet tall, and costs about
$500,000. It is now known as the
Ursus Mark VI. Other features of the suit:
- It's fireproof up to 2000 degrees F (for those fire breathing bears)
- Bulletproof up to 30 caliber, including armor piercing rounds (for those armed to the teeth bears)
- Built in oxygen system and suit pressurization that can seal off from the outside environment and provide up to 1 hour of oxygen off tanks
- It can launch a spray of bear repellant up to 15 feet (I think pepperspray would have been a better choice)
- It has a helmet mounted wide angle video camera with infared night vision system viewable from within the headset.
- It has a two way full duplex radio system
- It has a cooling system for ventilation
- It has pressure sensors to measure bite strength
- It has a black box to record your last words should a bear attack you (doesn't that make you feel safe?)
- It's waterproof and will allow you to float if you fall in water
Is that not the coolest thing you've ever seen? The best thing about the documentary was the testing. Here is what he did:
- Attacked with chainsaw
- Dropped a 300lb tree trunk on him from 30 feet
- Rammed 18 times by a 6,000 lb truck at 30 mph
- Shot with arrows from a 100lb bow
- Shot with a 12 guage shotgun
- Beat by 3 bikers with axes, pickaxes, pipes, and baseball bats
- Jumped off a 150 foot cliff
Basically, they did everything but actually get attacked by a bear, which I think would be the one thing that would matter...
Really, you haven't lived until you've seen some backwoods canadian get rammed by a truck at 30 mph and go flying backwards into a tree.