Every restaurant needs a waitress like Samia Lila on its team.
When a goanna lizard sauntered into the Mimosa Wines & Drystone Restaurant in New South Wales, Australia, on Sunday, the badass server grabbed the 6-foot intruder by its tail and dragged it out the door.
The restaurant shared footage of Lila’s heroics on Facebook:
“I looked at it and thought it was a dog at first!” said Lila, 25, who is in Australia on a working holiday from France. “But then I realized it was a goanna.”
The dramatic eviction of the lizard was all the more astonishing because, according to her boss Glen Butson, Lila is “terrified of spiders.”
“She scans for them [and] can spot a daddy long legs at 40 meters,” he told Australia’s ABC News. “But she had no fear at all of that goanna.”
Although goannas have sharp teeth and claws and are known to swing their hefty tails around in self-defense, they do not intentionally attack humans unless they come under attack themselves.
Some viewers of the video have criticized Lila ― who’s been dubbed the “Goanna Girl” ― for the way she dragged the lizard outside, according to Mashable.
But Lila insisted she intended the animal no harm.
“I like reptiles. I think he is a really beautiful creature,” she said. “I didn’t want to hurt him.”
