Teenagers watching late-night TV hear fridge door beeping only to find bear eating taco meat

Two teenagers watching late-night TV were surprised to find an uninvited guest in their kitchen: a black bear.

Hayes Sherman and Bobby Harden heard what they thought was a person raiding the fridge, but when they looked through into the room they saw the animal helping itself to taco meat.

The 15-year-olds then clung on to connecting door to hold it shut as the creature turned its attention on them.

A camera in the family’s holiday cabin in Truckee, California, captured the whole encounter.

“I heard footsteps, and then I heard Tupperware being opened really loudly and aggressively,” Hayes told CNN. “The fridge started to beep because it was open too long.

“I was really scared. I wasn’t exactly sure of what to do. I was watching TV with my friend, and I turned the TV off. We both went to the sliding door to hold it in place so that the bear couldn’t get in.”

The unwanted visitor only left after a county sheriff arrived on the scene, at 12.30am on Saturday, and fired a warning shot.

The whole incident unfolded as Hayes’s mother, Susan Mohun and her cousin were sleeping upstairs, unaware of the drama below.

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As the two youngsters held the door fast against the bear – which had also polished off some ice cream and crackers – they realised they did not have their phones with them. They used an Apple watch to call mum instead.

“I whispered to her, ‘Mom, there is a bear in the house, don’t come downstairs’,” Hayes said. The teenager then called the emergency services.

"It was very difficult, because I was whispering to 911 on my watch in a very dark room while trying to hold the door closed so the bear couldn’t get in,” he recalled..

Ms Mohun said she had to fight every instinct in her body to race downstairs to help.

“That is the worst-case scenario as a parent to have a bear between you and your children,” she said. “I am glad that I didn’t run downstairs, because that probably would have just agitated the bear.”

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It was left to Placer County Sheriff’s officer Allyson Prero to save the day.

She arrived, opened the door, enticed the bear out and then fired a warning shot to scare it away from the property.

An investigation found the animal had got into the cabin through an opened garage door.

“We learned a very valuable lesson in bear country to always lock your windows, your doors, your garage doors and car doors,” said Hayes.

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