Nine-year-old David Miguel was playing a soccer match at his school in Nova Lima, Brazil, when nature called. However, upon entering one of the bathroom stalls, he discovered something that made him postpone his bathroom break—a massive jaguar was sitting inside the stall.
David's heart "almost stopped," he said, as he quickly closed the door and ran to inform his father, Rodrigo Almeida, about the shocking discovery.
"I thought it would be an ocelot, a wild dog, or something else. When I saw the size of the animal, I ran away," Almeida explained.
Authorities were promptly alerted, and a team comprising police, firefighters, and a wildlife unit from IBAMA arrived at the school. They successfully tranquilized the jaguar and safely released it back into the wild.
Both the jaguar and David escaped the incident unscathed, although David admitted he was quite shaken.
"I was trembling like jelly. It growled, and my heart almost stopped," he recounted.
The incident occurred on May 21 at the 'Martha Drummond Fonesca Municipal' school. IBAMA later revealed that the jaguar was a young female and was safely returned to the wild without any issues.
Jaguars are the largest cats in America, closely related to lions, tigers, and leopards. They can grow up to two meters in length, weigh nearly 100 kilograms, and have the ability to bite through a skull.
