GLEN ROSE, Tx. — On Saturday, a family was visiting the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, Texas when they had a scary experience they will never forget.

The center allows visitors to drive around a path of animals, kind of like a safari, and visitors can feed some of the animals, according to KWTX.

Paisley Toten, 2, was with her mother in the bed of a pickup truck feeding animals when one of the giraffes grabbed her shirt, the news outlet reported. That caused the girl to be lifted into the air.

“We were having a little family day, just getting out of the house,” Jason Toten said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“I looked out the back window and I saw the giraffe … and then up she went. My heart stopped, it scared the hell out of me.”

He told KWTX, “Soon as she went up her mom just yelled hey - like ‘HEY!’ - and the giraffe just kind of let go.” As the girl fell from the giraffe’s mouth, her mother caught her. Luckily, no one was injured.

Jason Toten said that the incident was an accident, the Star-Telegram reported. He believes that the giraffe was trying to get food that Paisley had in her hands but ended up missing and grabbed her shirt instead.

To remember the scary experience, the family stopped at the gift shop on their way out and the toddler wanted some giraffe memorabilia.

“We go in there and all she wanted was a giraffe toy and a giraffe T-shirt. We ended up getting her both, we figured she deserved it,” Jason Toten said, according to the newspaper.

The Fossil Rim Wildlife Center’s website includes a list of rules to protect visitors and the center’s animals. Some of the rules include staying in your vehicle, refraining from honking your car horn, staying on the tour route at a speed of 15 mph, not feeding the animals from your hand or a feed cup and keeping from enticing the animals with food to put their heads inside a car. The Fossil Rim Wildlife Center also says visitors can ride in the bed of a pickup truck if there is an adult riding in the back, KWTX reported.

If you are interested in visiting the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center or looking for more information, visit the center’s website.

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