Earlier last week i published a story of a tourist who was killed by lion at the Safari park in South Africa. Well more details have emerged from the horrifying moment a lioness reared up and mauled to death an American tourist after she stopped to take a photograph in a South African safari park.
Standing on its hind legs, the lioness is seen peering into the vehicle seconds before it attacked Katherine Chappell, an editor on hit TV show Game of Thrones, through the open window.
Engineer Ben Govender, 38, who was in the car behind Miss Chappell, said 'no one could have imagined' what would happen in the minutes after he took the extraordinary photograph.
He described the 'terrifying' scene as he watched the animal take its first bite out of the passenger on the back seat before retreating from the vehicle, blood dripping from its mouth and paw.
Mr Govender said that at first the male and female lions did not seem interested - and that the lioness stood up 'without warning'.
He said: 'It was terrifying. After the first bite the lioness retreated from the car with blood dripping from her mouth and paw.
'We all thought she was done and didn’t like what she’d just bitten. But then like someone in a temper that wasn’t satisfied in a fight, she leaped back into the car and mauled the passenger.
'The rangers came running in and the two lions ran off but the lioness had half the passenger’s shoulder in her mouth. And it was too late to do anything to save her.'
Mr Govender, who lives nearby, was visiting the park with his mother, sister and friends, when he watched the driver of the vehicle in front stop next to two lions and roll down his window.
The passenger, Miss Chappell, did the same.
He said: 'We decided to show our friends a local spot where they could see real lions in a "wild" setting. The SUV in front of us stopped next to two lions and the driver rolled down his window.
Chappell graudated from Hofstra University on Long Island in 2008 with a degree in film studies and production. For the past year she worked with special effects company Scanline VFX.
Her mother, Mary Chappell, told a local newspaper that her daughter went to South Africa to work as a volunteer at a different reserve, one dedicated to saving rhinoceroses and elephants. She had hoped to make a movie about animal poaching, her mother said.
The park, which remains open, has defended itself, saying that visitors are instructed to keep windows closed at all times, and that the ambulance arrived soon after the attack.
The park said the lion will not be put down.
1 comment:
I know its wrong to blame the dead but why did she act like this. I dont blame the park at all, there is a warming that you must roll up your glass but i too sabi made her roll it down. these white people self.
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