This is the
terrifying moment a female lion tamer was mauled by one of her animals
in a circus in Egypt - ten years after her husband was killed performing
the same act. Faten
El-Helw is seen prancing around the ring and waving to her adoring fans
when the big cat suddenly leaps from its stool and lunges at her. As the panicked audience jump to their feet screaming, the lion tamer is pinned to the ground and bitten in the shoulder.
Footage of
the incident, which took place in the Egyptian city of Tanta, was
uploaded to YouTube and has been watched more than 50,000 times in three
days. When
the video begins, the lion that is about to launch the attack can be
seen sitting on a stool on the left-hand side of the shot - with two
more of the big cats also in the ring.
In the blink of an eye, the animal lunges towards the circus owner - dramatically flooring her.
Amazingly,
Ms El-Helw was able to get up and was led to safety while another
circus worker coaxed the lions back into their cages. She
suffered a hairline fracture to her pelvis and was rushed to hospital,
where after three days she is in a stable condition, Ahram Online
reports.
The
El-Helw family is renowned in Egypt for their lion-taming, with a
history of circus performing dating back to the 19th century. Ms El-Helw's late husband Ibrahim died from his injuries after being attacked by a lion in 2004. The
troupe at their latest circus, the Egyptian-European Circus, has been
performing to audiences all over Egypt since the mid-1990s.
Over the years, there have been at least five reported incidents of family members being attacked by their own lions. Family
patriarch Mohamed El-Helw also died at Egypt’s National Circus in the
1980s after being mauled when he tried to break up a fight between two
of the animals during mating season. On
his deathbed, he famously asked that the lion be spared - but the
animal refused to eat any food following the clash and eventually died
of starvation.
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