Two bears dead after I-75 crashes in Collier County

• Driver of one vehicle dazed but not seriously injured

Michael Bradford had a good excuse for not making it to work Tuesday morning.

"I was just tooling down (Interstate 75) and then next thing I know I see this flash of black fur and boom the air bags deployed," said Bradford, 56.

"I was kind of dazed and wondering what the hell happened," said Bradford, who lives in Fort Myers.

A 285-pound black bear had darted in front of his two-door 2011 Ford Mustang while heading south in the center lane, a mile south of Immokalee Road.

After being struck on its left side, the female bear crawled under the cable barrier into the median, where it died.

">It was around 5:30 a.m. and cloudy and dark. At about the same time, Ruben Hernandez, 55, of Lehigh Acres, was driving south — in the right lane — when his 2006 Toyota Corolla hit one of two male bear cubs in the head as it tried to cross I-75.

After being hit, the cub rejoined the other cub, crossed the berm and went into the Wilshire Lakes community at Fairhaven Lane.

The two juvenile bears were found later on the 6000 block of Shallows Way in Naples.

After being sedated and examined by biologists, the injured bear was euthanized because the injuries to its jaw and legs would have been too much for the cub to recover in the wild, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Katie Johnson said.

The uninjured cub was scared away from the neighborhood. The cub was a juvenile weighing between 150 and 300 pounds and was on the verge of leaving its mother, she said.

The Florida Highway Patrol said the crashes backed up southbound traffic, causing three rear-end collisions.

Bradford injured his left hand when the airbag blew it against the driver's side window. His wife, Pamela Bradford, 52, a passenger, had a neck strain. Both were treated at Physicians Regional Medical Center and released.

Hernandez and his passenger were unharmed.

Bradford said his car was damaged. "It's being looked at," he said. "We're pretty sure it's going to be totaled."

He said he had spotted a bear Monday while driving his school bus on Vanderbilt Beach and Livingston roads.

"At least one other driver saw three bears up on Immokalee Road and Livingston Road (Monday)," Bradford said.

"It's a possibility (it's the same ones), but I don't know for sure."

Connect with this reporter on Twitter @Christina Cepero.

Staff writer Steve Doane contributed to this report.