An exhausted nurse says she 'ran for her life' after coming face-to-face with a black panther on her commute home - only to look back and realise it was a life-sized stuffed toy. Evody Onesi says she turned a street corner after back-to-back night shifts and 'almost had a heart attack' when she encountered the giant beast.
The 26-year-old spotted what she thought was a real black panther lying on the pavement so she screamed and immediately began running for safety. But when she looked back to check if the big cat was chasing her she noticed it wasn't moving so turned back to creep past it instead.
However, as she got closer she made the 'embarrassing' realisation it was actually a life-sized stuffed toy. Evody's viral footage shows the big cat's ears poking up, its paws outstretched and its rigid shape showcasing a life-like outline. The nurse, who says she'd been awake for 24 hours when she saw the toy, believes someone planted it to prank pedestrians and fears someone may have seen her 'terrified' reaction.
Her TikTok video went viral racking up more than three million views, with users agreeing it looks real and one even branding the prank 'pure evil'. Evody said: "I turned around a corner and saw this huge black cat so I screamed and ran the other way. I nearly had a heart attack.
"At that point I'd done two night shifts and I was really tired. As I was running I looked back and realised it hadn't moved so I went back because I didn't want to walk the long way. It all happened very quickly. I was terrified. But as I got closer I thought 'that's not right' and realised it was a toy.
"When I realised I thought 'oh god, I hope nobody saw that'. I bet someone put it there to prank people and there's going to be a recording of me now. It's so embarrassing. What got to me was the way it was positioned. The way the bone is sticking out of the back legs is exactly how it would have looked if it was real.
"It's more rigid than you'd expect a toy to be. I'm glad that when people saw the video they thought it was real too, so I knew it wasn't just me going crazy. It's life-sized and I think that's what got me.
"If I hadn't taken the video people would have thought I was hallucinating due to lack of sleep. I might have thought that too. It can't just have been me that was scared by it."
Evody says when she checked the corner later that day the panther had been moved and she hasn't seen it since. Her TikTok has earned more than 70,000 likes. She captioned the post: "I just had a near damn heart attack and tried to run for my life. Now why would anyone do this?"
"I've been awake since 10am yesterday, which is literally 24 hours, My brain took a very long time to compute this was a stuffed animal." One commented: "I would have ran!"
Elody replied: "I ran for my life. It was so embarrassing. I started looking around thinking 'did anybody see that?'. A second wrote: "I'm crying. Someone definitely put it like that on purpose. That's pure evil."
A third added: "I didn't realise it was a stuffed animal." Another agreed and commented: "It fooled me too!"
The incident happened in Lewisham.
