TIFU by pranking my gf

So me and my gf (25m and 23f respectively) are spending Thanksgiving out at her parent's place in NM near the big Navajo reservation. It's this super old ranch style house that's like halfway between a house and mansion but it's not one of those cheaply built mini-mansions. It's this super old house from the 1890s, according to her father. As such, its got some irregularities in its layout that kinda make it kinda.creepy to exist in especially when you're unfamiliar with it.

Some of the floors are slightly sloped, the doorways are all just slightly smaller than the usual, the windows aren't quite big enough to hold the glass so they can only open a few inches (which isn't necessarily a problem in this case, especially as its starting to get chillier here), and a few of the rooms and hallways have these shelves screwed on the wall that aren't all at uniform level (important later). Plus all the taxidermies the family keeps around. They also have this really creepy wood carving that the great-great-grandpa owned (also important) .

Final important thing: my gf hate hate HATES that carving with a passion because her dad apparently used to like scare her with it by hiding it around the house. So basically, my mind gets racing because me and my gf have never minded a good prank on the other and I haven't gotten her good in a while.

The hallway outside our room has one of those oddly placed shelves right outside of our door. I checked with her dad to see if it was okay and then last night, after everyone had gone to bed, I snuck out of our room to the downstairs and snatched the carving and placed it on the stop level of the shelf so it would be right at eye level when she walked out in the morning. Harmless, right? Well apparently no, not at all.

Apparently, when my gf walked out of the room to start the day this morning she saw the statue started having this full blown panic attack and she was crying and everything. It took the better part of half an hour to calm her down. I apologized profusely to her and her family but now she's not talking to me and her parents have been super cold to me the entire today. Which feels a little un-earned coming from her dad since he allowed me to do it in the first place but I guess it makes sense cuz of how it all turned out. but yeah. Idk I feel really bad and I wanna apologize but Idk what I'd say. I'm starting to wish we had taken up my friend's offer to go to Connecticut with him instead lol

TL;DR: I accidentally gave my girlfriend a panic attack by scaring her with an old wood carving