World News for Students of English

04-06-2015 07:00

A lioness has mauled a tourist to death in a game reserve in South Africa. The 22 year-old American had been photographing the lioness from the car with the window down when the animal attacked her at the game reserve located 20 miles north of Johannesburg.

“According to the witnesses, it walked quite slowly towards the car and stopped roughly a metre away. The lady was busy taking pictures of it. The lion then sort of lunged at the car and it bit the lady through the window. Our staff immediately rushed over to chase the lion away, and the gentleman that was driving, he sustained some injuries to his arms trying to get the lion out as well.

Our staff chased the lion away and we immediately called for an ambulance and ER24 was here within minutes, but unfortunately, while they were treating the lady, she did pass away.”

This tragic event has reminded visitors of the need to heed the warnings laid out by staff at the game reserve.

“We hand them a slip of paper at the entrance just saying, please keep your windows closed, we explain to them why. But despite this it seems that the windows were still down.”

A male South African companion was also injured when he tried to help the woman. He is being treated for injuries to his arm which are not life threatening and staff have decided not to put the lion down.

Local media are reporting the woman’s death marks the third incident in the past four months at the park.

Difficult words: maul (to attack), game (animal), sort of (kind of), lunge (to move forward quickly to attack), rush (to move quickly somewhere), pass away (to die), heed (to follow), put down (to kill).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com