And the Darwin Award Goes To…
WYNNEWOOD, Oklahoma – An employee at the G.W. Exotic Animal Park was mauled by an adult male tiger after sticking her arm in the cage. Her jacket was caught in the cage and prevented her from removing her arm, which the tiger enjoyed as a delicious meal [UPDATE: Her arm was saved! Kitty missed a meal]. She was then airlifted to the hospital and reported to be in stable condition, although she’ll have an interesting story to tell about how she lost her arm. Will anyone believe her?
The zoo released a statement that the employee violated safety regulations and that the tiger would not be killed on their Facebook page.
“On 10/5/2013 at aprox. 10 a.m. a female worker violated safety protocol and placed her hand inside a adult male tiger cage. She was wearing a large goose down jacket which got bunched up inside the cage wire not allowing her to get her hand back outside the cage wire fast enough and the tiger grabbed her hand pulling her left arm through a 4 inch square hole.
The staff responded as trained to a medical emergency and park medics were on the scene within 2 minutes and gave emergency medical attention to the staff member. Parks emergency protocol was activated and put into place which including calling a ground ambulance and activating air evac medical helicopter.
She was transferred from the parks stretcher to the ambulance and transported to Pauls Valley Hospital helipad as the nearest air evac had to respond from Duncan, Oklahoma.
From there she was air lifted to OU Medical Center where she is in surgery and stable.
This was an employee error of violating the safety protocols of placing any part of the body inside a cage. The tiger will not be put down and our thoughts and prayers are with the member of our staff that was injured.
During the entire event she was awake and saying it was her fault and plans to return to work.
Her family has not been notified so her name will not be released.”
