RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A 21-year-old woman died this Friday in Chile due to a tiger attack in a zoo cage where she worked, in the region of O’Higgins, south of Santiago, official sources confirmed.
The young woman, who worked in the maintenance area of the Safari Park of Rancagua, was cleaning the facilities, around the cages, without noticing that one of them was open, informed the Carabineros police force.
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The feline, a tiger in captivity, attacked the woman in the neck, who died a few minutes later despite the attempts of the security personnel to rescue her and the intervention of the fire department and emergency medical personnel, who were unable to revive her.
Antonio Rojas, general manager of Parque Safari, said that a rescue vehicle frightened the animal, so it returned to its cage where the woman was cleaning and the accident happened. But by then it was too late, and he added that the incident must have lasted between 10 and 15 minutes in total.
“No one expects situations like this to happen, and we are immensely affected by what happened. What were the circumstances and conditions that went wrong is a process that is under investigation,” he added.
According to Rojas, the woman was performing “routine actions” of cleaning with a colleague. Specifically, her work consisted of cleaning the gravel from the rails of an electric gate near the lion and tiger enclosures.
The park, which closed its doors to visitors after the tragic event, is the only wildlife rehabilitation center in the region and has been open for 14 years.