How can I avoid bending pins on the processor?

How can I avoid bending the pins on the GX260 P4 processor, when I am trying to remove the processor chip, after a fan blower failure?  After removing the heat sink assembly with no force on my part, and NO resistance what-so-ever from the processor chip, the processor chip's pins were bent.

 

It later took a flat-head screwdriver with a very strong effort on my part, and several minutes later, to remove the heat sink from the processor chip. Nothing gentle would have seperated the two components (heatsink assembly and processor chip) without any brute force once it was out of the motherboard