SALMON — For the first time publicly, a Salmon, Idaho, man is describing the chilling moments in which he tackled and wrestled a black bear that broke into his home.
Brian and Kim Heidemann and their two young daughters moved to the Sunset Heights neighborhood just about a year ago, looking forward to a quiet life in the woods on the outskirts of Salmon.
But what happened at their home on Friday, Oct. 2, was anything but quiet, and closer to what they say was a “horror movie.”
According to Kim, on the Sunday morning before the attack, the Heidemanns noticed that all of their livestock feed for their chickens and goats had been eaten.
“Three 50-pound bags of feed, goat feed, chicken scratch and chicken feed,” says Kim. “We didn’t realize it was a bear necessarily at that point; we were just really confused. We’ve had deer get into our feed, and little animals, but nothing that bad.”
The next morning, the family realized something had gone through their trash, and there was bear scat on the ground nearby. The morning after that, they went to check on their chickens and found a bloodbath.
“We had 24 chickens, and when we went down, 13 of them had been completely massacred. The biggest pieces we found were wings and legs,” says Kim. “It was horrible. The only bird that was still intact was the rooster, but they had gotten him as well.”
The family talked to their neighbors about what they suspected was a bear in the area. According to Kim, the neighbor offered to set up a game camera to see if the bears would come back.
On Wednesday night, around 10 p.m., the Heidemanns got a call from the neighbor who saw the bears on his camera in the chicken coop. By the time they raced out there, the bears were gone.
On Thursday, the Heidemanns say their neighbor called the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to report the bear incidents.
Fish and Game spokesperson Tom Schrempp confirmed this to EastIdahoNews.com and said the department only ever spoke with the neighbor.
“Prior to the attack, we had no contact with the (Heidemann) family, ” says Schrempp. “We did place traps near the chicken coop. We were contacted by the neighbor of the family about the bears, so that was the first time we had heard that there were bears in the area.”
The next morning, the Heidemanns were awoken for what would most likely be the most terrifying minutes of their lives.
Their 14-year-old daughter had awoken to what sounded like someone coughing, says Kim. Looking out her window, the girl came face-to-face with a juvenile bear trying to enter her bedroom by climbing onto the swamp cooler in her window.
“We woke up at 3:30 a.m. to our daughter pounding on our door and screaming that the bear was trying to get in her bedroom,” says Brian. “By the time I got up and ran out the bedroom door across the house, the bear had popped the back door open, and my daughters and wife were standing right there, within ten feet of this bear.”
According to Brian, the latch on their back door had been faulty lately, and the bear managed to yank it open.
In an astonishing move, fueled by adrenaline and the instinct to protect his family, Brian launched himself toward the bear, tumbling with it back into their yard and wrestling for his life.
“He put his two front paws in, went to bring his third leg into the house, and I just, out of instinct, speared him and tackled him through the door, and we wrestled in the backyard,” says Brian.
With no weapon and only his fists, Brian brawled with the bear in the backyard as it bit him in the back of the head and scratched his arms and torso down to the bone.
Soon, their pit bull-boxer mix, Lulu, escaped from the house, trying to help protect Brian from the bear.
“Our dog came out, and kind of took the attention away from me for a minute,” says Brian. “Kim came running out because now this bear was going after her dog, but the bear turned and hooked onto Kim’s back. And I just started fighting that bear like it was a dude.”
“And I just started fighting that bear like it was a dude.”
Brian says he put the bear in a chokehold, long enough for Kim to run back inside. He continued punching the bear in the head before the dog ran out of the house a second time, giving Brian time to run back inside and slam the door shut.
“There was a point when he bit the back of my head when I was lying on the ground; I thought I was dead right there,” says Brian. “Like the pain…because he had gotten my arms and stuff, but he had bit right on my shoulder and then let go, and then instantly right on my head. I honestly thought I was dead.”
Realizing he was losing lots of blood, much of it from the back of his head, Brian began to say his goodbyes.
“Once I got in the house, there were a good five minutes where I told (Kim) I loved her, that I wasn’t going to make it, that I was sorry, and I hoped she and the girls were okay. I really didn’t think I was going to make it. It’s a lot to think about,” says Brian.
Awake And Alive
Kim says her focus was on keeping Brian awake and alive as her children stood by, trying to explain the situation to 911.
“There’s not a thought process when something like that happens that quickly, because it happened so incredibly fast. I mean, we were out there for maybe a minute,” says Kim. “I think my thought process was, ‘Oh my God, we can’t let him die,’ … we were trying to keep him awake, we were trying to keep him from going into shock.”
As they tended to Brian, one of the daughters began yelling that two more bears were trying to get into the house: the sow and another juvenile.
“The mom, the sow, was standing up on our front door trying to rip the screen off, very aggressively,” says Kim. “There are tears in the screens on all of our windows because they were just actively trying to get in the house.”
The family says it took a long time to reach dispatch because they were initially routed to voicemail. The second time their daughter called, she says it seemed like the dispatcher didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation.
“We’re still trying to get the 911 operator to understand that we needed him to send us help,” says Kim. “This wasn’t a ‘We’re gonna stay calm.’ We just got attacked by bears.”
EastIdahoNews.com has requested the 911 call audio from the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office, and we are awaiting its receipt.
“At one point, we just kind of gave up, and Brian looked at me, and he goes, ‘Just call the neighbors,'” says Kim.
One of Brian’s arms after the bear attack. (Courtesy of Kim Heidemann) 
One of Brian’s arms after the bear attack. (Courtesy of Kim Heidemann)
Kim was able to quickly contact a neighbor who had a bear-hunting tag this season.
“He grabbed one of his guns and came running up the driveway,” says Kim. “As he came running up the driveway, the sow dropped down from trying to get in the house, dropped down on all fours, and started charging him.”
The neighbor fired at the bear four times until it finally ran away, with the juveniles not far behind her.
“It was just honestly like something out of a horror movie.”
Law enforcement then arrived, with two officers coming into the home to try to save Brian’s life.
“Fortunately for me, the first officer that showed up was a corpsman in the Navy,” says Brian. “As soon as he came in, he just instantly began putting pressure on everything, wrapped everything as much as he could, while trying to talk into his radio to guide the ambulance to our house. He was a very good reason that I’m sitting here talking to you right now.”
After the ambulance left and the bears were gone, Kim realized her glasses were missing and remembered them getting knocked off during the attack.
Lulu Covered In Blood
“When we opened the door to go out to find my glasses, the dog jumped into the house,” says Kim. “She had gone after the bear, and we genuinely thought she was gone; we were expecting to find her body, not expecting her to survive.”
According to Kim, Lulu was covered in blood from head to toe, but not her own.
“It wasn’t her blood; she was covered in the bear’s blood,” says Kim.
“She was sore for a few days and didn’t really move that much. She gripped onto the bear so hard that it loosened her teeth, so she got to eat soft food for a few days.”
The family says they would’ve never expected Lulu to come to their rescue, describing her as a “princess dog.”
“She’s actually kind of scared of everything, which just completely blows our mind,” says Brian. “She jumped into action, but a leaf blows across the front yard, and she cringes. She’s frightened of Halloween decorations.”
Brian was taken to Steele Memorial Hospital in Salmon and then life-flighted to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, where he received surgery for his injuries. Thankfully, Kim’s injuries were minor enough that she did not have to be hospitalized.
According to a news release from Idaho Fish and Game, the sow was found dead from a gunshot wound from the neighbor. The next morning, the juveniles were trapped and euthanized.
“The safety of the area’s residents remains our top priority,” says Fish and Game Regional Wildlife Manager Dennis Newman in the news release. “Fish and Game would like to express our condolences to the individuals attacked, and we wish them a quick and complete recovery.”
Disappointed
The Heinemanns say they are disappointed by the response from Fish and Game, and that they believe there should have been officers at the property after they first heard there were bears in the neighborhood.
“We feel like there’s a little bit more that could’ve been done when they knew, and had seen the videos and everything of the bears on my property,” says Brian. “They should have had officers on this property until the situation was taken care of, not dropped traps off at the neighbor’s house and say, ‘That will be okay.'”
Schrempp says it is not protocol to dispatch officers at that point, and says they were not aware of the full situation.
“We didn’t know that this situation was a little more complicated than just the bears getting into some chickens,” says Schrempp. “We don’t have the manpower capacity, nor would we be able to speculate as to what encounters are going to require something like a law enforcement presence staking a house out.”
Looking back, Brian says his adrenaline and pure shock were the reasons he decided to fight the bear, along with his fear of his family getting hurt.
“I sit here, and I think, if I didn’t do what I did, my wife and girls would be gone,” says Brian. “I honestly never in a million years … you know, everybody is always like, ‘Oh, I’ll fight a bear,’ But you never know until it happens. If you get a chance to do it, I don’t recommend it.”
Firearm Nearby
Kim says if this were to happen to anyone else, she’d hope they had a firearm nearby and the knowledge of safe firearm practices.
“Keep your firearm handy. Firearm safety is 100% something our kids should learn early on,” says Kim. “Weird things can absolutely, 100% happen to you.”
The Heidemanns say it took them a long time to find a home they loved in an area they adore, and that they refuse to let this incident ruin their peace.
“We live in a beautiful, peaceful place. It’s gorgeous. And that was our other conversation, that we’re not going to let it ruin this,” says Kim. “This can’t ruin our peaceful little home; we’re not going to let it ruin that.”
A few months ago, a controversial question circled the internet. “Would you rather be left alone in the woods with a man or a bear?” Kim says she has the answer.
Republished with permission from East Idaho News
