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Ostrich loses by a long neck
20/01/2003 08:26 - (SA)
Carel van Dyk, Die Burger
Cape Town - A male ostrich from Excelsior farm outside Touws River met
its match - and its end - on Saturday morning when it attacked a young runner from the University of Stellenbosch.
The student strangled the bird in self-defence.
Corlize Steyn (19), a second-year medical student, was visiting friends on the farm when she was attacked by the ostrich about 06:00 on Saturday. "I saw ostriches the previous night when we went hunting hares. "I went running on Saturday morning and when I stopped on the dam wall to stretch, an ostrich came running up to me. I stood still. It also stopped
and stared at me for a while before it attacked me," she said.
The ostrich tried to attack her twice. Both times, she grabbed it by the neck
and tried to force its head down so it could not kick her. "I thought that the closer I stayed to it, the less it could do to me. The
third time it attacked me, I warned it: "I'm going to kill you!
"It
attacked again and I grabbed its neck and started strangling it. I have no
idea for how long I strangled it. It felt like forever."
She said that she had acted instinctively. Apart from a few scratches and
bruises, she escaped unharmed.
On her return to the farmhouse, her story was greeted with disbelief. Coenraad Bezuidenhout, the farm owner, said. "I didn't want to believe it until I went out and saw the ostrich lying
there,"
"I have never seen anything like it."
Bezuidenhout said she didn't have to pay for the ostrich.
Steyn said the ostrich had already been slaughtered and that she was
considering taking a piece of its meat home.
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