WARNING: IMAGE OF BLOODY PILLOW SLIP BELOW
Durban — A terrified South African couple fought off a hungry leopard with a pillow, a paperback copy of Michael Pollan’s Cooked and determined fists, and survived to tell the tale.
Retired SAA pilot Gavin Allderman and his partner Jill Sheard, both 67, were on holiday in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in Botswana when the beast thought they looked good enough to eat and tried to claw its way into their rooftop tent where they were chilling with their books.
Speaking to the Sunday Tribune Allderman said he had spotted the “emaciated” leopard a few hours earlier while taking a shower and alerted Sheard, but at the time he thought it was a cheetah. “Big mistake’”.
Had he known the truth they would have left the area immediately because leopards were “extremely dangerous” and “compromised animals” even more so, he said.
“Leopards don’t normally attack and I think being in a rooftop tent, I felt safe, I was complacent.”
Later while reading, Allderman noticed their motion sensor lights flickering and knew that the animal was circling their vehicle.
“So I banged the top of the vehicle and shouted at it because I thought maybe it could bite some of the electrics or the piping.”
Allderman says the leopard must’ve watched him climb the ladder to get to the tent and reckoned that if a human could get up there, it could do the same. The couple was unarmed because after swapping their ground tent for a roof top tent Allderman no longer took an axe and diver's knife to bed with him. But now on the rooftop tent, I was feeling safer and I didn't take those weapons with me. Big mistake. Unconcerned, the couple fell asleep.
“The saving grace was me waking up as it got onto the bottom rung of the ladder. I think if it got to the top, it would have stood there completely silently and then it would have shredded the net and come in and we would have been mincemeat. But as it got to the top of the tent, I mean, to the top of the ladder, I was already shouting. I was punching it as it got there so it never had a chance to actually try and work out what the hell was going on,” said Allderman.
Describing those terrifying moments on Facebook, Sheard said that the tent's gauze was zipped up but the plastic door was rolled down about two thirds of the way.
“He was shouting, screaming at her, banging on the gauze but she kept coming up, claws in the gauze, face parallel to us. Gav was punching at her face, and when she drew her face back, he was punching at her paws.”
Sheard said she shouted at the big cat, using a pillow to hit at its claws.
“She was undeterred… and so was Gav who kept at it, both of us shouting. We knew we were fighting for our lives. Suddenly there was a lot of blood flying around and we realised Gav’s right hand had been injured.”
She said “realistically” the fight lasted about a minute but it felt like five and suddenly the leopard was on the ground again and they wrapped Allderman’s hand in a pillowcase.
They then aimed the spray water bottle at the leopard and used it like a water pistol.
“We were roaring like beasts to try and scare her, she was unfazed by it but it was a mild distraction,” wrote Sheard.
In the midst of the leopard attack the two had a typical couple’s moment.
“I’m just fighting for my life, punching furiously as hard as I can. Punching him or her on the nose with my bare hands. And then Jill was behind me from my right, she sort of got in the way. I got a bit irritated with her. At one stage I said ‘don't do that’, but I mean, she was a help,” said Allderman.
He said after the leopard fell to the ground they saw it licking its claws.
“I couldn't see any damage on its face. But it must have been bruised. Every time he pulled his head back, I concentrated on punching his claws and so one of his claws obviously caught me through the gauze and so that's where the blood all came from.
“Once he was knocked off, he lay there like your pussy cat. He was on his side, looking up at us as we shone the torch. We lunged the ladder at him.”
With the leopard still lurking Allderman bit the bullet and shimmied down the other side of the Toyota which was “thank God” unlocked. But for a second, I thought, God, maybe I hadn't unlocked the vehicle. Then I would have been history. Because in the process, after we knocked him down, we heard him climbing on the bonnet.”
He drove away from the campsite. They returned to the campsite after a brief nap in the car and that the leopard had followed their trail. In the ensuing hours they found two French vets who helped to clean his injured finger.
The next day Allderman found a tour group who gave him an antitetanus shot and the couple continued their holiday.
He says for now they are both doing well but would consider counselling if they need it at a later stage.
Sunday Tribune