A 1-year-old elephant wandered off from his mother at the Norman Carr Safaris Chinzombo Camp in Zambia, and 14 lions attacked him—but, somehow, this story avoids an unhappy ending.

The lions were unable to take the elephant down, even as they clung to his back, and he was able to get away, the New York Post reports.

The whole thing was caught on video by a group on a game drive through the safari, and Norman Carr Safaris has more dramatic pictures on its website, including one in which the elephant is nearly taken down by three of the lionesses.

He ultimately escaped by going into water nearby. “In the 30-plus years I have been a safari guide in Zambia at the [Luangwa] Park, never have I seen anything like this,” says the guide who drove the group to the site.

“We were all so worried the baby elephant would be killed right before us.” Instead, he ended up reuniting with his herd, and the guide notes that his new nickname is “Hercules.” (In California, a 6-year-old boy recently survived a mountain lion attack.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: Baby Elephant Survives 14-Lion Attack

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