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, went to stroke the lioness and it did not end well (Picture: Jamie Pyatt)

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 male’s back and tickling it behind his ear.

The mechanic quips to wife Ilze on camera: ‘If you bite me, then I’m 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’.

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: ‘It’s biting him, it’s biting him.’

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

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’.

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 whether there was a fence between them or not.

‘Some people never learn that where wild animals are concerned keep a distance between them and you’.

In May last year Mike Hodge, 72, the owner of the Marakele Predator Centre in Thabazimbi just north of Johannesburg was attacked by a lion when he entered its enclosure.

British born Mike was badly mauled and was only saved when the lion called Shamba was shot dead by a keeper after being dragged into the undergrowth where it was savaging him.

The married family man was rushed by air ambulance to hospital for life saving surgery on wounds to his neck and chest and back but is back running his game lodge now.



In February last year a 22-year-old woman was attacked and mauled to death by a lion at the Dinokeng Game Reserve in Hammanskraal after getting out to take photos of wildlife.

Additional reporting by Jamie Pyatt.