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Intruder breaks into man’s house and meets resident armed with a BBQ fork: ‘He chose flight and I chose fight’
Darren Holden/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images

Intruder breaks into man’s house and meets resident armed with a BBQ fork: ‘He chose flight and I chose fight’

Stick a fork in him — he's done

A Utah man who was house-sitting for his parents squared off with an intruder and armed himself with only a BBQ fork.

What are the details?

On Tuesday, Landon Ledingham was downstairs in his parents' home in Provo, Utah, house-sitting for them while they were away on vacation.

Believing he was the only one home, Ledingham was confused when he heard someone in the upper level of the house.

"In that moment, I thought, 'OK, I think someone is in the house,'" Ledingham told KSTU-TV.

Ledingham grabbed the first weapon within arm's reach, according to the station, which ended up being a large barbecue fork.

"I came up the stairs right here, and I checked this way, 'cause I thought I heard footsteps over here, but I didn't see anything," Ledingham said. "But right as I turned, that's when I saw the figure go."

The intruder ran toward the back door, but he wasn't going to let the intruder off that easily, Ledingham said.

"I was just really angry [that] he would have the audacity to break into our house and steal our stuff, and I just wanted to stop him," he said, detailing his confrontation with the intruder.

"I saw him run down the steps, so I pursued him down the steps," Ledingham said. "We both slipped in the mud a little bit here, and then his shoes flew off, and I took off after him this way."

Ledingham added, "He chose flight and I chose fight."

What happened next?

"When [the intruder] hit the fence over here and smashed through it, I was like, 'Holy cow,'" he admitted. Despite being shaken at the events, Ledingham followed the intruder over the fence and tackled him.

During the ensuing scuffle, the intruder was able to wrest the fork away from Ledingham, but Ledingham wasn't about to back down even then.

"I had got flipped, and he started pushing [the fork] into my chest," he said. "When I started feeling it go into my chest, I kicked him off, and that's when he started running into the woods over there."

The suspect has not been caught at the time of this writing, but the Provo Police Department are continuing to investigate the incident.

Law enforcement describes the suspect as a black man, 5-foot-9 and about 140 pounds.

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