Giraffe plucks toddler out of open-back truck, hoists her briefly in jaw-dropping ride
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Two-year-old Paisley Toten was at the back of a pickup with her mum when a giraffe grabbed her shirt and lifted her into the air briefly.
PHOTO: SIERRA ROBERT/FACEBOOK
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A giraffe hoisted a two-year-old girl off the bed of a pickup at a drive-through zoo in Glen Rose, Texas, on June 1, giving the toddler a brief – albeit jaw-dropping – wild ride.
A video that has gone viral shows the giraffe – about 5m tall – peering into the back of the truck, where two-year-old Paisley Toten was with her mum, Ms Sierra Robert, 23.
The giraffe then edged closer towards Paisley, who was holding a paper bag with animal feed inside it. It tried to poke into the bag with its mouth but snatched a piece of Paisley’s shirt instead.
The creature lifted the girl about a metre into the air before it let go when Ms Robert shouted at it, startling it.
“It was just really a shock, adrenaline sets in,” Ms Robert said in an interview later with Good Morning America. “Her falling to me, me having to catch her like, it’s all in slow motion.”
Paisley and her parents were at the Fossil Rim Wildlife Centre, a non-profit conservation facility that lets visitors drive their vehicles through areas where zebras, giraffes, antelopes and other herbivores range freely.
“We stopped to feed the giraffe... Paisley was holding the bag, and the giraffe went to go get the bag, not get her, but ended up getting her shirt too and picking her up,” Mr Jason Toten, 24, Paisley’s dad, told television station KWTX.
“All of a sudden, I couldn’t see her any more... My heart stopped, my stomach dropped. It really scared me,” he said.
In a statement, Mr Warren Lewis, chief marketing officer for Fossil Rim, said the centre was notified on June 3 of an “incident involving one of our giraffes”.
He said Fossil Rim was taking “immediate action to make sure it won’t happen again”. That includes a new rule barring zoo-goers from riding through the park in truck beds.
Little Paisley Toten with her mum, Ms Sierra Robert, at the Fossil Rim Wildlife Centre in Glen Rose, Texas.
PHOTO: SIERRA ROBERT/FACEBOOK
Mr Toten said he was not blaming Fossil Rim for what happened.
“It was an accident, and the giraffe didn’t mean to. It was just one of those things... We’re not mad at the giraffe. We’re not mad at the park,” he said.
Paisley told a reporter she felt “scared”. Still, she went for a stuffed toy giraffe and a giraffe T-shirt as souvenirs.
