SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) — An escaped tiger killed a zoo patron and injured two others in a cafe at the San Francisco Zoo Tuesday afternoon, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Fire Department told CNN.
A San Francisco Zoo visitor attacked by an escaped tiger is carried away on a stretcher.
Both of the injured were transported to San Francisco General Hospital, Fire Department Lt. Mindy Talmadge said.
Police shot and killed the tiger, she added.
The two injured men, aged 19 and 23, were in serious but stable condition with multiple lacerations, said Dr. Eric Isaacs.
“I believe there was probably some blood loss at the zoo, but here they are talking, they are alert, their vital signs are stable at this time,” Isaacs said. Both men could be released as early as Wednesday, he added.
Authorities were notified of an escaped tiger around 5:15 p.m. PT (0115 GMT), shortly after the zoo’s 5 p.m. closing time, Talmadge said.
“Apparently right around closing time — there was a pen with four tigers in it — one of the tigers got out,” Talmadge said. “The tiger went into a cafe at the zoo and attacked a patron. That person ended up dying at the scene.”
Police arrived on the scene, as the tiger attacked two other patrons, Talmadge said.
“They shot the tiger, and the tiger is deceased,” she said.
The 125-acre zoo was locked down after the incident, and all the facility’s other animals were accounted for, including three other tigers that had been in the same enclosure with the escaped tiger, Talmadge said.
Initially, officials feared some or all of the other tigers may have escaped but later determined they had not, Talmadge said.
Police, fire and zoo officials were on the scene investigating, Talmadge said.
The 78-year-old zoo has Siberian tigers and rarer and smaller Sumatran tigers. It was not clear which subspecies of tiger was involved in the incident.
A year ago, one of the zoo’s Siberian tigers attacked a keeper during a public feeding. The keeper survived and recovered from her injuries.
California’s Division of Occupation Safety and Health later determined that the zoo was at fault because of hazardous conditions in the Lion House and lack of specialized safety training for employees.
The zoo made changes ordered by the OSH, and the Lion House was closed for more than six months after that incident.
So…these guys were attacked at the zoo cafe. My guess is that the Lion attacked them for taking more than 4 words to order their “lattes”. The correct way to order at a “cafe” is “coffee…..regular”
28/12/2007 at 8:29 am Permalink
Looks like this is going to get ugly. It seems their are reports that the wall was too low and some people were taunting the tiger. I saw the father of one of the dead last night claiming it does not matter if they were taunting the tiger there should be better precautions to keep the tiger caged etc. There is going to be some big time lawsuits for this. I bet every zoo in the country right now is doing an inventory of all it’s animals and the safety measures they have in place to keep this from happening elsewhere.
28/12/2007 at 12:41 pm Permalink
The way I feel is that you are taking your life into your own hands whenever you visit a zoo. Cage me up in a strange environment for a while and I will find a way out and will definitely start killing people.