A Colombian family received an unexpected visitor when a runaway lion from a visiting circus camped out in their house in Calarcá, Quindío.
The family was awoken at 4am by a strange noise. They went outside to see a lion destroying a motorbike parked out the front of their house. They tried to scare it off with bright lights but they hadn’t reckoned on the agility of the beast, which climbed up on the roof.
Unfortunately the plastic roof tiles gave way under its weight and it crashed onto the patio. The family went to the front door to escape, only to find another lion at the door.
“We thought we were going to be killed,” said resident María Josefina Gómez.
Meanwhile, authorities had mounted an operation to capture the animals. One was caught easily by its trainer but the other giant cat stayed in the house for three hours, even curling up in a double bed.
Eventually it was drawn out of the house by attracting it with a raw chicken on a stick.
The family lived to tell the tale.
