Woman Wrestles Tiger With A Stick, Bloodied Selfie Goes Viral

A woman in an Indian village fearlessly fended off a tiger that was attacking her goat last week.

The incident occurred in Usgaon village of Sakoli Taluka in Bhandara district, Maharashtra, India. Rupali Meshram, 23, was at home when she heard her goat, which was tied outside, screaming at the top of its voice.

On rushing outside, she found a tiger eyeing her goat. Before the beast could prey on her animal, she picked up a stick and charged at the tiger, Times Now reported.

Mesharam began hitting the tiger with the stick with the intention of scaring it off. This angered the animal which attacked her, much to the horror of Meshram’s mother who had run outside the house hearing the commotion.

Her mother tried to intervene in order to save her daughter and get her back inside the house. In the attempt, both Meshram and her mother sustained extensive injuries.

After getting back to safety, Meshram took a selfie of her bloodied face, which has gone viral.

Meshram’s mother told BBC that she was horrified at witnessing her daughter being attacked by a tiger. "I thought my daughter was going to die," she said. Although they called the forest guard, the tiger was gone by the time the guard arrived half an hour later, she said.

The goat in question did not survive.

The mother-daughter duo was admitted to a local hospital. Meshram had sustained superficial injuries to her head, waist, legs, and hands. Her mother was struck near the eye by the tiger when she went to save her daughter. They were discharged from the medical facility after treatment and are expected to make a full recovery.

The doctor who treated Meshram said that she had shown "exemplary courage" in fighting the tiger, but was lucky that the ferocious animal did not start biting her.

The village where Meshram lives is frequented by tigers and other wild animals due to the proximity of a wildlife reserve. "I am a bit worried about returning to my village so soon after an attack like this, but I am not scared," Meshram said.

Last year, a tiger ended up killing four people in Brahmapuri village, Maharashtra. The tiger, named Kala, was initially captured in July after it took the lives of a couple of people. Although the two-year-old tiger was fitted with a radio collar and later released into the nearby Bor Wildlife Sanctuary, it went onto kill two more people, NDTV reported.

This led the court in Maharashtra to issue a shoot-to-kill order against the predator. However, before the tiger could be tracked down by armed forest guards, it came in contact with an electric fence near a village – constructed to keep away wild boars – and died of electrocution, Rishikesh Ranjan, field director of Pench Tiger Reserve, confirmed in October.