As the attacks mounted, hundreds of workers fled from Tsavo, halting construction on the bridge. At this point, colonial officials began to intervene. According to Patterson, even the District Officer, Mr. Whitehead, narrowly escaped being killed by one of the lions after arriving at the Tsavo train depot in the evening. His assistant, Abdullah, was killed while Whitehead escaped with four claw lacerations running down his back. Eventually other officials arrived, with a reinforcement of around 20 armed Sepoys to assist in the hunt. Patterson set traps and tried several times to ambush the lions at night from a tree. After repeated unsuccessful attempts, he shot the first lion on 9 December 1898. Twenty days later, the second lion was found and killed. The first lion killed measured from nose to tip of tail. It took eight men to carry the carcass back to camp.