Gents,
I must admit that I've not been as forthcoming with information regarding this incident as I could have been. It's a bit difficult to explain fully why, but it's a bit like when race car drivers are involved in particularly bad accidents on the track. They're willing to talk about it shortly afterwards but mostly they wish to move on. Jacques had to take these same clients out the next day afterwards for a 2nd lion. If you can imagine that after having seen his close friend mauled the previous day, he had to put that behind him and go right back out there. If he's got the day's previous events on his mind, well I don't think it's too hard to figure out that he's distracted and that's just not good for anyone involved in the hunt. And life must go on for my PH friend and he will have more lion hunts to conduct.
However, as someone said, the cat is pretty much out of the bag at this point. So, I'll give you the particulars as best I know them. As mentioned Jacques and I discussed this, but it was not at great length. And of course I wasn't there. But here goes:
1. The night before as Jacques was going onto the property for this first time this year, he noted how the cats were acting "grumpy." He even posted this the on FB, something of an eery foreshadowing in retrospect. I'm not sure exactly what he meant by the cats acting grumpy , but he found it noteworthy.
2. On the hunt itself as they approached the lion and came into shooting distance, Jacques instructed the client to shoot. The client hesitated, for what reason I'm not sure. And I'm not trying to throw the client under the bus here, it could be as simple as he did not have a clear view of the vitals and was not confident in his shot, it was after all very thick as can be seen in the video.
3. Now combine an aggressive cat with the shot not being made, you now have a charge. Perhaps because he was in the clearest view of the lion, it made Reinhard the target of his charge.
4. Jacques did get off a shot that connected with the lion prior to the lion reaching Reinhard. It slowed the lion down, but obviously did not stop him.
5. As has been noted, Jacques kept his head and moved in to distract the lion away from Reinhard. Fortunately the lion dropped Reinhard and moved to the side giving Jacques the opening to put one in the lion's head and put an end to this. There's no doubt in my mind that Jacques saved the life of Reinhard as well as everyone else there that day.
That's really about all there is to it.
.........sure his madam might have something to say......
