Brits-A couple from Brits has been left seriously injured after apparently trying to play with a lion cub.

The pair, who had recently bought the lion, were both admitted to hospital and had to have surgery, reported Beeld.

Willie Jacobs of the Ukutula lodge near Brits said the lion cub had been bought from him by Manie and Angelique Visser, but the cub was still at their premises as the Vissers were waiting for some documents.

The lion was between 10-months-old and a year.

“I wasn’t here on Sunday but it sounds as if the lion wanted to play with Visser and the woman with him but a lion’s claws and teeth are sharp and they don’t know their own strength,” said Jacobs.

He said Ukutula staff had apparently tried to dissuade Manie Visser from going into the lion’s camp.

“The man apparently had lions before so they thought he knew what he was doing. And it was his lion.”

Visser tried to help his wife when the lion got hold of her, sustaining multiple bite wounds all over his body.

His wife was bitten on her leg.

Both are in a stable condition.

– News24