"He waved his flashlight around and saw a bear," said Boulder Community Hospital spokesman Rich Sheehan.

The bear had apparently decided to hibernate in the crawl space of a cottage used occasionally by hospital employees.

State wildlife officials were called in to get rid of the bear.

They decided the best approach was to make the environment noisy, Sheehan said.

They put a boom box in the crawl space and the bear was gone the next morning. The workers had turned on country music.

Officials replaced the cover for the crawl space to keep the bear from returning.