Warning: Graphic content
A tourist nearly had his arm ripped off after putting it through the fence of a lion enclosure.
Pieter Nortje went to stroke a lioness while his wife took a video.
However, the predator mauled his limb and he is now in a serious condition in hospital.
Pieter, 55, was being given a guided tour of a game lodge in South Africa to celebrate his wedding anniversary.
He went to pet the beasts and can be seen stroking an adult males back and tickling it behind his ear.
The mechanic quips to wife Ilze on camera: If you bite me, then Im going to bite you back.
A young lioness approaches the fence at the Tikwe River Lodge as Pieter leaves his arm waving dangerously in the air and says: Come here lovey, let daddy stroke you.
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The lioness locks her jaws down on his right forearm with her teeth penetrating to the bone and drags him towards the fence as his wife Ilze shouts: Its biting him, its biting him.
The predator holds his arm for five seconds and appears to maul it with her claws as Pieter desperately tries to break free.
His panicked screams distract the lioness who lets his arm go put as he pulls it back through the enclosure wire, it is pouring with blood.
Netwerk24 newspaper reported that Pieter was spending the weekend at the luxury game lodge in Virginia, Free State Province, to celebrate his 10th wedding anniversary.
He was rushed to the Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein in a serious condition and suffering septic shock.
A spokesman for Tikwe River Lodge, which has 30 lodges overlooking the Sand River, said they had been running the lion enclosure tours for six years without any incidents.
The denied any responsibility for the mauling and said: There are warning signs everywhere. Nortje stuck his hand through the electric fence to touch the lions and was bitten.
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A South African game ranger at another park who saw the video said: The man was lucky that the lioness was probably not hungry or not used to killing live prey outside in the wild.
Lions are pack animals and hunt as a team so others in the enclosure could easily have joined in and if they had done killed him wheRead More – Source
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