A Johannesburg man rescued his daughter from the jaws of a hyena after it attacked the girl in Botswana, Beeld reported on Thursday.
The animal grabbed eight-year-old Christin Chalwin-Milton on the left side of the head while she was asleep in a chair next to a campfire in the Okavango Delta. The incident happened in the Third Bridge camp in the Moremi Nature Reserve at about 9pm last Thursday.
Speaking from the Sandton Medi-Clinic on Wednesday, where Christin was recovering, her father, Ralph, said he initially thought the chair she was in was falling over.
He ran after the animal and shouted when he realised it had his daughter in its jaws and was dragging her off. It tore open her head from her eye to behind her ear. Her left ear was torn off. Ralph picked it up and put it on ice.
After unsuccessfully trying to summon a helicopter, Chalwin-Milton began driving her to hospital in his 4×4 vehicle. About 40km outside Maun an ambulance met them.
Though Christin’s ear will have to be reconstructed, all her facial muscles, tendons, eyesight and hearing are unharmed.
Despite the incident, Chalwin-Milton told Beeld they are still ”mad about Botswana’s bush”.
”We know the dangers of the bush. You just have to be very alert,” he said. — Sapa