WILSHIRE, England - When a mom and her kids were visiting a safari park in England, the outing took an unexpected turn when the family's van burst into flames in the middle of a lion habitat.
Helen Clements and her two kids had to make a split-second decision inside Wilshire's Longleat Safari Park: stay inside the burning van or come face-to-face with lions.
“You’re stuck and you can’t control and you can’t do anything about it,” Clements said.
Other tourists in the safari park couldn’t believe what they were seeing, ABC News reported.
Clements said she and her son tried to get out of the burning van, but the park rangers stopped them.
“They were shouting at us get back in the (van), do not get out the (van) and it’s a situation — what do you do?” Clements said.
The rangers rushed in just in the nick of time to help the family escape.
“Literally as he opened the door we just jumped into his vehicle,” she said.
“(There’s) always a ranger with their eye on the animals and a ranger there to assist the family,” Longleat Safari Park marketing director Alex Lloyd said. “That training kicked into action and all worked well, so the first ranger stayed close by the lions whilst the second ranger was able to relatively freely get the family out of the vehicle.”
Everyone was scared but they were all safe, Clements said.
“Why couldn’t it be in the flamingos or the camels?” she said. “But no, it had to be in the lion enclosure.”
Poster Comment:
Ordered back into a burning vehicle? The stupidity is incredible. I would imagine the lions were nowhere to be seen once the rangers with sirens and bullhorns showed up.
