‘Lion was going for my toddler’

‘We were chicken nuggets on the move,’ says father after close shave

UST minutes before, Lucien Oakley-smith and his cousin had been joking about the “horrors” of Jurassic Park. But then, it all turned too terrifyingly real when a young male lion attacked their safari van during an afternoon outing at the Lion Park near Fourways.

The “aggressive” lion jumped into the van, packed with adults and children, including his toddler, and only gave up when a woman ranger, punched, pushed and pepper sprayed the lion.

Oakley-smith, a Melville-based employment-equity manager, believes the lion was after his 18month-old baby, Iman.

“It was very close to dangerous and scared the living c**p out of me. As a dad, I felt very useless. If that lion had come into the vehicle, I wouldn’t be able to protect my daughter,” he told the Saturday Star, of the incident, which happened two weeks ago.

“I live in Joburg and have been through life-and-death and police brutality but when we saw that lion’s face, we realised we were literally staring death in the face. It wasn’t there to play or investigate us, it was there on more sinister business,” he said.

Oakley-smith explains that on the day of their ordeal, his cousin had visited South Africa for the first time in 20 years and wanted to see some wildlife.

Together with a large group of adults and children, many among them tourists, they hopped onto the park’s custom-built safari van.

“It’s caged on one side and has top bars with a canvas thing over it. I didn’t think a lion could fit through those gaps.

“The ranger started talking about something else and a lioness came from nowhere and flanked the safari van. Everybody said ‘look how clever she is’ and liter-

Jally a second later the young male lion jumped straight up on top of the safari van,” he recalls. “It started forcing its way through the bars where the baby was and got his head through… The lion got its right shoulder and then its left shoulder inside the truck. Everybody was screaming. I was just lying covering my baby. Then the ranger started punching the lion in the face. You could see she was desperate and shaking.

“A police reservist who was with his pregnant wife started hitting the lion with a plastic bottle. It didn’t respond and then the ranger pepper sprayed the thing.

“The worst part is that lions are super predators that work in packs and once the lion had been repelled all the lions for med up around the van.

“The ranger shouted at them and got us out of the camp. The children were so traumatised. The adults on the tour had to tell the ranger to please stop the tour. ”

He praises the ranger for her heroism. “The worst thing would’ve been the lion falling in the cage because we would’ve been a group of adults and seven kids and a lion figuring out we’re chicken nuggets on the move.”

Earl Smith, the general manager of the Lion Park, says it regrets the incident: “It has never happened before that a lion jumped on top of one of our vehicles.”

It was unlikely, he believes, that the young lion was violent. “They are being hand-reared and are certainly not violent. They are playful and curious. I don’t believe it was going for the baby.

Oakley-smith does not believe the park is negligent, but says he does not want to be patronised.

Smith says reinforcements have been added to their built-forpurpose safari vans.

He claims counselling had been offered, but Oakley-smith says they have not been approached.