A Florida man was left bruised and bleeding after an iguana fell on his face during a Saturday yoga class in Miami.
Instructor Anamargret Sanchez, was teaching a free community class at Miami’s Legion Park, in the city’s Upper Eastside neighborhood. Sanchez also livestreams the sessions on Instagram so that people at home can still take part.
She told The Miami New Times that their class was held on a “really beautiful day.” They conducted their normal exercises for about 47 minutes. But the class was cut short when two iguanas, who onlookers say were likely having a territorial dispute in the oak trees above, started to create a ruckus. Amid their fight, one of the lizards either fell or was pushed straight onto one of the yogis below.
“Guys, I think we are going to close the class,” Sanchez was recorded saying during the livestream, according to the New Times. “I’m going to take care of someone who just got an iguana dropped on his face.”
The injured yogi was identified only as Michael, due to the possibly embarrassing nature of the incident. The man told the New Times he didn’t want to be known as “the guy whose face was used as an iguana landing pad.”
He recalled the moment he got hit by the giant lizard, telling the New Times: “I didn’t see it coming. It felt like a sandbag hit me in the face.”
“The first thing that went through my head was it must have been a coconut. But there were no coconut trees. And then I thought maybe the guy next to me slugged me — but, I mean, we’re in a yoga class and it’s so calm and peaceful. Why would the guy hit me?” Michael said.
Yogis in the class that witnessed the incident identified the falling object as a green iguana which likely weighed “between 20 and 30 pounds” and fell from a branch that was around 25 feet in the air.
Sanchez noted that iguanas are common in the area, and he described one in particular as “the king of that frickin’ park.”
The attack left Michael with a swollen eye and a bleeding nose and lip. Nearby paramedics conducted a quick check-up on Michael and offered to take him to the hospital, but he declined. Sanchez and Michael enjoyed an “anti-inflammatory tea” as they waited for Michael’s wife to pick him up. (RELATED: Bandana-Wearing Iguana Allegedly Jumps Fence, Attacks Bystander)
While others have reportedly described the incident as a sign of luck and urged him to buy a lottery ticket to test his odds, Michael doesn’t see it that way.
“It’s kind of scary if you believe that kind of thing — out of 150 people in the class, I just want to know why me?” he told the New Times. “But I’ll put it this way: I don’t think having an iguana fall on your face is good luck.” He added repeatedly that, while he doesn’t “believe in guns,” he now thinks Iguanas “should be shot on sight” and “mounted.”