When a little boy found himself lost in the African bush, he couldn’t help but feel alone and scared. And when a lion approached him, he thought his end was near. But then the unthinkable happened, and the crying boy set off on an adventure many would find hard to believe.
While on holiday in Africa with his family, Ethan decided to wander off into the nearby bush to explore. What started out as an innocent sense of adventure soon became quite problematic. When Ethan looked up and realized he was lost in the middle of nowhere, he immediately began to feel extremely afraid. And what happened next confirmed he was right to be scared.
Ethan stopped where he was and decided to see if he could place himself. He couldn’t believe he had been so silly to wander off from his campsite like he had. Hoping he could see the camp nearby, he decided to climb halfway up a tree to get some height. But as he was looking around, he saw something that made his stomach shrivel. Just a few meters away in the bush was a lion crouched in his direction. Then and there, he realized that it had probably been stalking him the entire time without him knowing it.
Now he was faced with a horrible decision to make. He could stay up in the tree and stay relatively safe for the time being, or he could make a run for it. His gut told him that staying put was dangerous; it just made him more of a target for other animals that might cruise by. So he decided to risk it all and make a run for it, hoping that perhaps the lion would lose interest in him. This was an extremely naive mistake, but Ethan was a young boy and one scared out of his mind at that.
He slowly made his way down from his vantage point and readied himself to run. He would jump forward the minute his foot hit the ground. He couldn’t waste a single moment. As he put his foot down, he swiveled in the opposite direction of the lion and began to run faster than he had ever run before in his life. Trying to make his way among the dense foliage without making too much noise, he dared to look back, hoping he wouldn’t see the giant feline behind him. But he couldn’t have been more wrong. Right on his tail was the big lion, pounding behind him. That’s when he realized that he had made a terrible mistake. At the rate it was running, he was sure he was going to be pinned down at any moment.
Praying for some kind of miracle, he just continued running as fast as he could. That is until tragedy struck. All Ethan could remember was looking back once more to see how close the lion was, and then his face was in the ground. All he could feel was his ankle pulsating with pain and his nose gushing with blood. Forgetting the imminent threat of the lion, he yelled out in pain, trying to orient himself after his fall. He looked around to see what had caused him to injure himself like this.
That’s when he saw that he had stepped right into a badger hole in his haste of getting away from the vicious lion. The impact had been awkward and painful, causing him to break his ankle. He had never experienced such severe pain in his life. He was overwhelmed by it and completely forgot about the terrifying predator he had been running away from in the first place. All he could do was cry out in pain, wishing his mother was there to comfort him.
So when he got comfort in a different way, he was shocked right back to reality. Bent over in severe pain, eyes scrunched up in tears rolling down his face, Ethan just felt this warm wet feeling over his face. Opening his eyes in shock, he found himself face to face with the terrifying lion he had been running from. It was a female lion, and at this angle, she was not as terrifying as he thought. In fact, she looked more like a big house cat than a deadly predator. Ethan froze in fear. He didn’t want to make any wrong moves, as he was terrified she might just bite his face off. But she just continued to lick his face over and over again.
When he didn’t move, she began to nudge his face as hard as she could. This startled Ethan back to reality and gave him the adrenaline he needed to move once again. He slowly moved away from the affectionate lioness, completely confused. He had never expected behavior like this from a lion. In fact, back at camp, the park rangers had explained quite emphatically that under no circumstances should the tourists interact with wild animals. He didn’t know what to do next. His ankle was throbbing terribly, and the pain made it hard to think straight. He began to try to evaluate his options. He knew he couldn’t move much, but he needed to. He needed to get back to the camp and to his family, as only there would he feel safe. But how was he going to get there if he couldn’t move?
He would need to at least try and get someone’s attention, but he had absolutely no idea where he was. So he focused on the first issue at hand: the lioness. After all, if she turned on him, he wasn’t going anywhere at all. So he sat and just studied her, trying to focus through the pain. He closely watched her body language, trying to predict what she might do next. At this point, she was slowly pacing the ground in front of him. Every now and again, she would stop and look at him and then resume pacing. Ethan was so unsure of what to think. He tried to shift his body to get more comfortable, and then she was right next to him, nudging and licking him again and scaring him to the core.
Her actions were definitely affectionate, but why was she playing with him before turning him into a meal? Ethan couldn’t help but quietly sob from the pain. He had broken a bone before, but this was nothing like that. He tried terribly hard not to concentrate on it, but it was all he could feel. The big cat could sense the intense pain he was in because she eventually stopped pacing and sat right up against him, as if trying to offer comfort. But Ethan simply recoiled in fear, sensing that her comfort wasn’t working. The lioness seemed to change gears. She began to nudge the child in front of her harder in an upward motion. Ethan resisted her pushes but tried not to antagonize her in any way.
After a little while, she then nudged him one last time and walked a few feet away. Then she turned back and looked at him from over her shoulder. When Ethan didn’t react the first time around, she just repeated her odd gesture. Again, she nudged him in an upward direction and then walked away, always looking back at him. Ethan couldn’t help but get the feeling that she wanted him to follow her. Was that really it, or was he starting to go a little mad all alone in the savannah? Frustrated by his stillness, the lioness pawed at the ground and let out a snappy roar. Her huge paws caused a gust of sand and dust to fly all around Ethan, and he coughed. It was at that moment that he realized how parched he was. He could hardly remember the last time he had something to drink. This was another worry he had to add to the list.
Until now, the issue of hydration had not passed his mind, but now it was catching up with a vengeance. Never in his life had he felt so thirsty. The pain in his ankle and intense growing thirst made it clear that he needed to move, regardless of how painful it might be. He banked on the fact that he wasn’t imagining things. Perhaps the lion was trying to help him, and maybe following her wouldn’t be the worst thing he could do. Either way, it was definitely better than being a sitting duck for less friendly predators. So he painfully hobbled up to his feet and began to follow the lion. Her ears perked up when she realized he was accepting her silent invitation. He had been right; she was definitely trying to lead him somewhere. But where?
Each step was excruciating for Ethan. He balanced all the weight he could onto his healthy foot and used a stick to alleviate the pain from the broken one. It was horribly awkward and made his movements quite slow, but the lion seemed patient enough to deal with it. He walked as fast as he could behind her but often found himself needing a break. Anytime he stopped, she would just sit and wait for him to get back up again. He wondered where she was taking him and, most importantly, why. His thoughts raced back to when he first arrived at the camp. The game rangers had spoken about a lioness that hung around the campsite often. She wasn’t exactly friendly, but apparently quite inquisitive. Ethan hoped that this lioness was the very same one they had mentioned, as that would mean that she was most likely leading him back to his camp.
He hobbled along with this hope in mind, desperate for it to be true. At one point, he swore he could hear people calling out to him, but instead of their voices getting louder by the minute, they seemed to get quieter with each step. This was not a good sign. Was he wrong about the lion’s intentions? Was she leading him somewhere dangerous? Ethan began to grow a little worried. What was he thinking, blindly following a lion around the savannah? For all he knew, he could be following her to his very death.
Just when his anxiety began to peak, though, the pair broke out from the dense bush and came to a fresh, running little river. When he heard the flowing water, everything else in his mind simply melted away. All he could focus on now was quenching his thirst. With great difficulty, he lowered himself down to the ground to get a drink. When the water touched his lips, he instantly felt like he had won the lottery. He couldn’t ever remember enjoying water as much as he did at that moment. He slurped down as much as he could to quench his thirst. He was panting away when he remembered the lion.
He was crouched down with his back to her in the most vulnerable position a live prey could ever be. But whipping around, he was shocked to see her simply sitting quietly behind him, as if guarding him from whatever lay yonder in the bush. She didn’t look like she was about to attack him at all. So he laid down on his back, relieved. The fresh water had helped revive his senses a little. A small part of him even dared to think he just might survive the whole ordeal after all. Now he just needed to rest for a few minutes. It was at this very moment that he heard what he thought was his name. His eyes shot open and jolted up, but he couldn’t see anyone around. But just when he was about to close his eyes once more, he heard it again.
Sitting up as fast as he could, he tried to listen intently. Sure enough, floating along the air around him were distant shouts coming from a group of people. It seemed the lion had heard them too because she had perked up and was looking quite anxious. She even let off a low growl as if warding off the people as they came closer. Ethan, however, was not going to let his only chance of rescue slide right past him. So he took a deep breath and began screaming for help. He did it over and over again, calling for help, shouting as loud as he could, saying different things to get their attention. He even managed to get to his feet and start waving his arms around high in the air. Even if he couldn’t see them, maybe they could see him.
The lion was not happy about his sudden change in behavior. She seemed quite worried at the possibility of people approaching them. Ethan couldn’t help but think she had it all twisted. What she thought was a threat to him was actually his saving grace. How could she not see that? Soon enough, the voices calling for him began to get louder and louder. Ethan could now tell which direction they were coming from and turned that way. He continued to shout, knowing that they were probably following his voice. But as they got closer, the lion got even more anxious, to the point where she became aggressive. She was no longer just pacing up and down; now, she was physically trying to get Ethan away from the people and closing their location.
She began to headbutt Ethan as hard as she could, pushing him over twice. She was attempting to push him in the opposite direction, almost as if telling him they needed to escape. But Ethan refused to be moved, and what she did next happened at the most inopportune moment possible. Ethan could hear the voices getting closer and closer. As they grew louder and more distinct, he could hear what sounded like the game rangers from the camp and some other people. But when he heard his father’s voice, he immediately felt like he was in heaven. His eyes filled with tears, and he just started shouting for his dad as loudly as he could. He could hear their footsteps quick in the bush, but so could the lion, and she saw this as a massive threat.
She put herself in front of Ethan and pushed with all her weight. He fell down but got right back up, fueled by the adrenaline of being rescued. Realizing that he wasn’t going to move, she went behind him and bit his shirt, dragging him away from the voices calling out to him. Ethan was taken off guard for a second, but he found the strength to react. He yelled as loud as possible and wriggled as much as he could to get out of his shirt. It was at that very moment that his father and the game rangers broke through the brush.
As you can imagine, the shock of seeing his son in the grasp of a lion’s mouth was too much for Ethan’s father. He grabbed the game ranger’s gun and immediately tried to shoot the lion. The game rangers took a moment to react, but soon they had him under control, with their gun back. They understood his concern but told him to stand back; they didn’t want to risk harming the child in the process of shooting the lion.
At the sound of the gun being fired, the lioness had let go of Ethan’s shirt. But instead of running away to safety, she instead placed herself in between him and the search party, her teeth bared. After all this, she still thought she was protecting Ethan from the other humans at the site. The game rangers felt very threatened. They knew they needed to try and de- escalate the situation as best they could before it became even more risky for the child. They took up a defensive stance and readied themselves to deal with the hostile lion. But then something shocking happened.
The little boy hobbled past the lioness and held her head in his arms. He sobbed his heart out and begged the game rangers not to hurt her. The lion responded by cuddling into his arms, as if understanding his protection. The game rangers were startled. This was simply unthinkable. What was going on between the boy and this wild cat was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Still, they slowly lowered their weapons. Ethan’s father then ran forward and grabbed him into his arms, not caring about the threat of the predator by his side. But the lion only let off a low moan, as if acknowledging that the man was indeed caring for the boy too. He then scooped his son up into his arms and began to slowly carry him away.
The game rangers followed cautiously behind, keeping a keen eye on the lioness. Surprisingly, she was in it for the long haul. When she had let the humans take the boy, she was determined to make sure that they didn’t harm him. So she followed them all the way back to camp.
Ethan’s mother immediately started sobbing when she saw he was safe and sound and rushed him to their tent for some much-needed love and care. Since they were in the middle of the savannah, it took almost 24 hours before Ethan could see a doctor. Thankfully, it wasn’t too serious of a break, so they were able to set his ankle on the spot and give him some medication to help with his pain.
To Ethan, everything was a blur. He had passed out in his father’s arms right after being rescued and stayed semi-conscious for the rest of the time. So when he finally came to, he had so many questions. The main one was where the lion was now. The game rangers escorted him to the border of the camp where the lioness had been the whole time. They told Ethan that, regardless of how hard they tried to chase her away, she just kept coming back for him. He took that moment to thank the sweet cat, finally understanding that she had done everything in her power to keep him safe.
When he went back to camp after that, he sat with his parents and relayed the story of how he had followed a guinea fowl until he could no longer recognize where he was. He had been stuck in the middle of nowhere, desperate for help, and help had come for him indeed, but from the most unlikely of places. They sat in disbelief and horror at his story but were grateful that he had come out alive in the end. It was a story he would be telling for the rest of his life. What an incredible story! How would you have reacted to seeing a lion chase you down?
