Three female elephants escaped from a circus in St. Louis on early Saturday afternoon, storming the Family Arena parking lot and damaging several vehicles before being contained, I4U reported.
Around 5:30 p.m., the pachyderms at the Moolah Shrine Circus in St. Louis, Missouri were disturbed by apparent loud noises. Irked by the sounds, the scared elephants made an unnoticed exit through the back entrance of the circus.
Several trucks and cars were damaged in the stampede incident. Witnesses were forced to remain inside their cars while the elephants roamed the parking lot.
According to I4U, one of the witnesses, Sally Schmiz, said that she saw the elephants coming toward them.
"These huge elephants literally went through these RVs. Then they went through two trucks, breaking mirrors and panels off and breaking the windows," she told KMOV.
"We saw all these people running after them and they were all screaming 'stop, stop,' and several of the circus people were trying to run alongside them," another witness, Karyn Tunnicliff, told KSDK.
"The trainer yelled to one guy, 'I need anything, just pretzels, any kind of food,' " she said.
After 30 minutes of being loose in the parking lot, the trainers were able to capture the animals.
"The elephants were loose for a brief period," Dennis Kelley, President of Moolah Shriners Circus, said in a statement. "The handlers were able to occupy the animals and they are resting comfortably at this time," UPI reported.
However, a spokesman for Moolah Shrine Circus, Dennis Burkholder, said that circus employees and circus customers were the only ones allowed into the privately owned parking lot. It was inaccessible to the rest of the public.
The Saturday show was canceled for the day and is set to resume on Sunday, the Moolah Shrine Circus said, I4U reported.
