Apparently she had entered the enclosure with another family so that they could have their photos taken. She had intervened when one of the cheetahs grabbed a girl belonging to the other family. She survived by playing dead until one of the guides chased the animals away with a stick.
I always feel uneasy when I see people's holiday snaps where they're stroking a lion, patting a tiger or sitting on a crocodile. Willingly standing within striking distance of a large carnivore and grinning has always struck me as a bit dumb.
The only shot of me that comes close to standing within striking distance of a large carnivore and grinning, is the one above taken about 15 years ago somewhere in West Wales. To those of you for whom David Attenborough is a stranger, I'm standing next to a vulture while it played with my sleeve. It had just been fed and vultures tend to prefer dishes that are already dead. I felt relatively safe because, as you can see, I'm no dish and I'm not quite dead.
When I got up this morning, I read the story of the woman mauled by cheetahs in more detail on the BBC's News website: Violet D'Mello tells of Port Elizabeth cheetah mauling. One sentence stopped me in my tracks, "Her husband Archie took photos of her ordeal." WTF...!?!
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