msnbc.com A tourist who, along with a child, was mauled by two cheetahs at the petting area of a wildlife park in South Africa lived to talk about it, saying she decided to play dead in hopes she'd survive. "Something inside me just said, 'Don't move. Don't move at all," Violet D'Mello told the Port Elizabeth Herald. "Don't react, just play dead'." D'Mello, from Scotland, said her husband was taking pictures of her with the cheetahs at the Kragga Kamma Game Park when one grabbed the leg of a nearby child. The girl got free, though with deep scratches that required stitches, and as her brother ran away D'Mello reached out to grab him. As I stopped him, something jumped me from behind," she said. A guide pulled the cheetah off her, but not before it had pawed at her head. Then the second bit D'Mello's legs, keeping her pinned down. "It all happened in just a few minutes," she said of the incident on April 28, "but it was a nightmare." Even in controlled environments, all animals are unpredictable.
