Sheer panic.

That was the only way freelance photographer Mohd Syahrin Abdul Aziz could describe the moment he realised that his Hyundai Starex had collided with a tiger while on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Terengganu.

As he was still recovering from the shock following the accident, Syahrin told Malaysiakini there was a man who had rushed to the scene with a hammer and tried to dislodge the tiger’s fang.

“I was still in a state of panic and I was only thinking of my family and my newly repaired car. I did not expect the man to come barely five minutes after the incident.

“He was told off by the crowd that gathered but he did not care and I saw he was trying to knock out the tiger’s fang, although it was already about to fall off," he said.

Syahrin said he could not do anything as he had to deal with highway patrol officers while going back and forth to his car - retrieving important documents as well as checking up on his family.

In the incident that occurred at about 11.45pm last Friday, Syahrin said he was on the way back to his hometown in Terengganu with his wife and three children.

Recounting the incident at 321.2km of the Pantai Timur Expressway 2, Syahrin said the road was dark and he only managed to shout “Tiger!” when the animal was less than five metres from his car as it attempted to cross the road.

It was eventually discovered that the tiger was pregnant with two unborn cubs.

“I know tigers are under threat of being extinct. It is more saddening to know that it was pregnant. That was very sad.

“But these things happen. I was driving slowly and it was an accident.

"It is the same case like any other person accidentally hitting an animal, but I crashed into a tiger,” he said.