Chaos ensued as a woman yelled for help after being attacked by a jaguar at an Arizona zoo. It is reported that a guest ran over to help the woman who had crossed over a barrier to take a selfie with the jaguar.
The jaguar attacked the woman in the process of her selfie.
WATCH the gruesome details of the attack below:
Please understand why barriers are put in place. Sending prayers to the family tonight.
“We regret to inform that this evening, before closing, there was an incident reported involving a guest who crossed over the barrier to get a photo, according to eyewitnesses,” the zoo said in its statement above. “The visitor sustained non-life threatening injuries to their arm from one of our female jaguars. At the request of the family, paramedics were called. At no time was the animal out of its enclosure. The incident is being fully investigated.”
The zoo also tweeted that people should “please understand why barriers are in place.”
The fire department said that the woman would need treatment for her injuries.
According to reports, the attack happened Saturday evening at the Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park. Shawn Gilleland of the Rural Metro Fire Department, was one of the firemen and paramedics present to respond to the incident; he provided information about the incident.
“At no time was the animal out of its enclosure,” the zoo tweeted.
The woman is said to be in her 30s.
Once she leaves the hospital, she is expected to survive, according to reports. The animal had reached out and attacked her arm when she was attempting to take the selfie.
Another zoo visitor, Adam Wilkerson, was the one who came to the woman’s aid.
Adam Wilkerson’s video capture of woman attacked by jaguar at an Arizona zoo.
Wilkerson said he spotted someone around the corner yelling for help.
“Without thinking, I had no idea what I was going to see, I just ran over there,” Wilkerson stated. “I saw the other girl up against the fence with her arm caught in the jaguar’s claws.”
Wilkerson avoided pulling the woman off the jaguar because doing so would have potentially made things worse.
“I could see the claws in her actual flesh,” Wilkerson said.
Instead of pulling the woman, Wilkerson was quick-thinking and decided to distract the jaguar. His mother then came up behind him and pushed her water bottle through to the jaguar’s cage.
The water bottle distracted the jaguar, causing it to let go of the victim.
“When my mom put the water bottle through the gate, the jaguar let go of the girl,” Wilkerson said, according to reports. “And we pulled the girl back and she collapsed.”
Neither he nor his family, whom he was visiting the zoo with, saw the actual attack so he could not detail how exactly the woman had found herself so close to the animal.
No employees witnessed the incident either, according to Wilkerson.
The park director, Mickey Ollson, said this is the second time this month the female jaguar has swiped at a visitor who crossed a barrier–and neither incident is the jaguar’s fault, according to the director.
The video below from 2014 gives an inside look at the zoo’s animals–and a quote from Ollson stating that the zoo does allow visitors to get as close as is reasonable to the animals.
“Wildlife World has always tried in our 30-year history to put people as close to the animals as we possibly can,” Ollson said back in 2014. “I think many times zoo architects and zoo directors forget what a thrill it is.”
(Ollson makes this comment at the 4:05 mark in the video below):
Litchfield Park, where the zoo is located, is about 20 miles from Phoenix in Arizona.