Watch the moment a sunbathing man comes face to face with a huge bear - full video

A man was given the fright of his life as he was confronted by a huge bear. David Oppenheimer was relaxing at home in his garden when he was joined by the animal.

The footage, which was filmed on April 15, shows a relaxed Oppenheimer in a lounge on his porch. However, the video quickly takes a turn for the worse when a large black bear can be seen entering the frame from the right side of the camera.

Neither the bear or David seem to notice each other despite being a few feet away from each other. Oppenheimer becomes aware of the mammal as it just casually strolls by causing him to jerk up.

The movement results in the two making eye contact for a couple of seconds. Luckily, the moment is over fairly quickly before the bear makes a run for it.

David from Asheville, North Carolina, USA captioned the video: "Chillaxing at the end of the day, didn’t expect to make eye contact so close. Good thing we are already acquainted."

Oppenheimer was alerted when the motion detector went off but said: "I looked behind me and didn’t see anything. But about a minute later, the bear came along and was practically in front of me. My eyeballs certainly got a stretch."

Oppenheimer said the same bear has visited his home a couple times before to inspect the rubbish bins and grab a quick bite from his "bear-proof" bird feeder. "The bears here are very peaceful. This one just caught me off guard,” he added.

David now says he’s considering attaching a rearview mirror to his chair to avoid future sneaky bear attacks.