Boy, 13, Armed With Bat Sends Intruder Fleeing

The hit movie “Home Alone,” about a boy thwarting burglars with imaginative mayhem, was not total fantasy. Just ask the guy who tried to break in while 13-year-old Ryan Hendrickson was home alone.

Ryan was watching television Wednesday night when he heard a noise that sounded like a window screen being cut.

“I ran to the closet and grabbed a bat,” Ryan said Thursday. “I went . . . into the dining room, where I saw him cutting the window with a knife.

“He put his left hand in first, and I was waiting for his right hand to come in . . . and I took the baseball bat and I hit him as hard as I could.”

The man ran. Ryan called 911.

“I was just afraid, and I hit at the first part I saw,” Ryan recalled. “I really didn’t have time to think about it.”

Joyce Hendrickson, who works nights as a welder, said she has told her son what to do if someone tries to break in while she’s not home.

“She said if somebody does break in, get out if you can,” Ryan said. “But if they are coming in, hit any part of the body you can see.”

Police Lt. Richard Dugan said Ryan took a chance in hitting the burglar. “Preferably, we would like to see them in an incident like this call 911,” he said.