The account that follows was sent to us by long-time Hunting Report subscriber Robert Aman who was in Ethiopia at the time of the mauling. We confirmed the substance of his report with a representative from Col. Negussie Eshete's Rocky Valley Safaris in Addis Ababa. Aman writes:
"March 16 was my last day of vacation in Addis Ababa, and I had plans that afternoon to meet with PH Thomas Mattonovich before taking a late-night flight to Dubai. Upon finding Thomas out of the office, I called his mobile phone and he explained that he was at the Korean Hospital assisting another Professional Hunter with two hunters that had been mauled by a lion.
"I immediately drove to the hospital and joined Thomas, as well as Col. Negussie Eshete of Rocky Valley Safaris and his young Ethiopian Professional Hunter, Sisay Shewa- mene. There in the emergency ward were two hunters still in their boots but flat on their backs and in pretty bad shape waiting for their Medivac to Johannesburg. Mark Metzger, an American, and Cliff Walker, a Bulawayo-based Zimbabwean Professional Hunter, had been on a nyala and plains game safari with Sisay when they got word that a lion was causing concern at a sugar cane plantation south of Nazareth.
"I hunted warthogs on this plantation back in the 80s. The surrounding area is very dry, but they irrigate from the Awash River, growing thick stands of cane in sizeable blocks occasionally cut by a cart path. Mark sustained the more serious injuries, and murmured hello, but........(continued)
