A woman who ‘went to the toilet in the bushes’ was saved from being mauled to death by the world’s biggest tiger when her husband used his truck to ram the beast.
Darya Ulyanova, 26, is in hospital with “severe lacerations” to her shoulder and both arms.
She underwent surgery after the attack by a giant Amur tiger in the Russian Far East.
She claimed her husband Mikhail - or Misha - saved her by ramming the wild animal with his Zil truck.
It is the latest attack by a species now rising in numbers after Vladimir Putin took measures to protect the beasts which were on the brink of extinction.
“I look out of the corner of my eye - the tiger is coming at me,” said Darya.
“I started running.
“I took three steps and fell.
“He flew at (me) from above and started to tear me.”
She was clasped in his “fangs”.
“He pulled me, pulled my hand towards him,” she said.
"And I could not escape because [the beast was so big].
“Then Misha took the Zil and ran into a tiger, crushing him with the bumper.”
The tiger fled into the forest.
He could now be fined up to £20,000 under Putin’s laws protecting the species.
Police and tiger experts are checking her story amid claims she also said that she was looking for a lost dog when she was attacked and collecting ferns.
Some reports said her testimony was “confused”.
However evidence of tiger hair was reportedly found on the truck.
Sergey Aramilev, director general of the Amur Tiger Center, said a full investigation would be carried out.
Reports say there is a suspicion the man was poaching.
“The version that a man crushed a tiger with a truck that grabbed his wife is unlikely, based on the nature of the injury and the experience of lightning attacks by the predators,” said the centre.
“It is impossible to jump into a truck, turn around, and run over the animal.
“But there is blood on the spot, traces of a struggle.
"Now painstaking work is beginning to establish [the circumstances].
“We will wait for the experts' opinions.”
