A woman narrowly escaped death after a leopard attacked her at the Dover Trust Camp in the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve on Sunday, July 20.

Nomsa Khoza (48), a caretaker at the reserve’s Dover Trust Camp, recounted the harrowing incident from her hospital bed at Tintswalo Hospital in Acornhoek on Monday, July 28, in an exclusive interview with Lowvelder.

Khoza said the attack occurred at around 17:30, as she was walking from her accommodation to a nearby house to switch on the lights as part of her daily routine.

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“I suddenly heard an unfamiliar sound coming from the bushes. Before I could make out what it was, a leopard pounced on me,” she said.

“I was terrified and thought I was going to die, but God gave me the strength to fight the leopard with my bare hands and win the battle.”

She said the leopard appeared to have aimed for her throat but missed as she instinctively swerved.

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“It bit me on the upper right side of my chest. I fell on my back, and it climbed on top of me and bit my left arm,” she said.

Khoza sustained deep scratches to her chest, thighs and lower abdomen from the leopard’s claws.

“I only saw balls of fire in its eyes,” she recalled.

In a desperate attempt to survive, Khoza said she wrapped her left arm around the leopard’s neck and pulled it closer.

“That gave me the chance to stick my fingers into its mouth and stretch its lips apart. I think the pain made it pause. I kept hitting it with my fists and shouting for help.”

Her cousin and colleague, Ronald Moropane, heard her screams.

“I was in the shower when I heard the noise. I forgot everything and ran outside in my birthday suit to see what was going on. When the leopard heard me shouting, it fled into the bushes,” he said.

Moropane rushed back inside to get dressed before returning to help.

“She was bleeding heavily. I laid her down inside the house and called the management.”

Reserve rangers soon arrived and called an ambulance. Khoza was placed in one of the rangers’ vehicles to meet the ambulance en route, and she was transported to Tintswalo Hospital for treatment.

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When Lowvelder visited her on Monday, her sister Reinah and daughter Valentine were at her bedside.

Valentine expressed deep gratitude that her mother had survived.

“It’s rare for anyone to survive a leopard attack. Only God knows how He saved my mother,” she said.

She added that the family regarded the incident as a tragic accident that could have happened to anyone.

Attempts to obtain comment from the reserve’s management were unsuccessful at the time of publication.