One of the common causes of human fatalities or injuries is animal attacks. The frequency of the attacks varies according to the geographical location. Reports tell us that the number of people who have been attacked by cats and dogs in the United States is up to five million. Attacks by animals on humans, whether provoked or unprovoked, is one of the reasons why many people suffer from major health problems.

Animals are born wild no matter how tamed or domesticated they seem. They go back to the very essence of what makes them animals, that is, the animal instincts when they are scared, agitated or hungry. The most injurious form of the animal attack is an animal bite. Working with such unpredictable creatures is a gamble that many zookeepers and animal trainers make. They risk their lives every day, whether it is out of need or passion. Below are 15 of the most shocking cases documented over the years where zookeepers were mauled or literally torn into pieces by wild animals.

15. Andrew Oberle Attacked By Chimpanzees

Chimps or commonly known as chimpanzees are native to the forests of the west. They are big apes with large ears. Andrew Oberle, who was a student in the Goodall Institute in South Africa was studying the behavior of chimps. On one of his study trips, he accidentally got too close to the chimps by crossing the safety fences of the park. Naturally, the unsupervised animals attacked him with full force. He was severely bitten and even dragged for about half a mile by the chimps before being rescued. At this point, Andrew was literally fighting for his life. The report by the doctors who tended to him also documented that the victim had lost toes and fingers due to the bite of the chimps.

14. Tatiana Attacks Three People In San Francisco Zoo

Tigers usually do not cause many problems for people, provided that they are given enough natural prey and a good habitat. But the victims of Tatiana’s attack had really bad luck. At the San Francisco Zoo, there lived a 243-pound 4-year-old Siberian tiger named Tatiana who managed to escape from her open-air enclosure. She attacked Carlos Eduardo Sousa Jr. along with two other victims who were brothers named Amritpal and Kulbir Dhaliwal. Sousa’ throat had been severely punctured and the body was found near the tiger grotto by a zoo employee. The attack resulted in a fatal cut in the jugular vein, spinal fractures, and injuries to the head and neck.

13. Deadly Komodo Bites Phil Bronstein

Phil Bronstein, a chronicle executive editor, visited the Los Angeles Zoo with his wife, Sharon Stone. Bronstein got attacked by a venomous Komodo dragon and suffered a very serious foot injury. For his own safety, Bronstein was told to remove the white tennis shoes that he was wearing during his visit because according to the zookeeper the dragon’s feed was white rats so if he wore the shoes, the Komodo dragon would mistake them for the rats it ate and could attack him. As fate would have it, even though Bronstein was barefoot, the casing of his big toe was crushed by the jaws of the dragon. He then had to undergo surgery in order to get his severed tendons reattached.

12. Lioness Mauls Zookeeper In South Africa Zoo

One of the big cats in the Felidae family is commonly known as the lion, while it’s female is referred to as a lioness. Lionesses are given particular care in the zoos to help them grow and maintain the immense beauty that they hold. Joe Ramonetha had been one of the zookeepers in a zoo in South Africa. He was 63 years old and was taking care of an 11 -year-old lioness named Nyanga. While tending to some other lions, he was attacked. The security gates were mistakenly left open, which gave Nyanga a way out and made Ramonetha vulnerable to the attack. He endured a severe bite on the neck and his screams could be heard by everyone in the area. Other zookeepers managed to free him from Nyanga but he was pronounced dead soon after he was taken to the hospital.

11. Binky The Polar Bear Attack

Binky, a 1,200 lb polar bear stuck his head in the bars of the cage and seized Kathryn Warburton who was an Australian tourist. Warburton suffered lacerations and got her leg broken. Had the visitors in the zoo not thrashed Binky with branches and leaves to eat and relinquish his hold, he would have killed Warburton. Binky not only broke Warburton’s leg but also attacked another visitor. The visitor was drunk and Binky mauled him. The leg of the teenager got torn up but despite the attacks by Binky on these unsuspecting people, he became a minor celebrity. People were attracted towards him because of his adorable looks.

10. Melody The Tapir Attacks Lisa

The tapir is found in Central and South America, as well as parts of Asia. It is a strange looking beast that is very much similar to a pig. On a morning in November of 1998, Lisa Morehead, a zookeeper was feeding Melody when she was suddenly attacked bitten on her left arm by Melody. Melody was a Malayan tapir and was a new mother with a 2-month-old baby in her enclosure at the time of the attack. Morehead was strong enough to fight back but because of the attack, she suffered facial lacerations and internal injuries that included a punctured lung. The arm had torn off at mid-bicep and had been too contaminated to be reattached to Morehead’s body.

9. Patricia Wymen Mauled By Wolves

Patricia Wyman was a 24-year-old wildlife biologist who was hired in a new Wolf Centre exhibit to conduct some education programs while simultaneously taking care of five gray wolves. Wyman had visited the Centre with her supervisor. The employees with her told her that these wolves always kept their distance with people and that they were shy. Before the attack, Wyman had gone to the Centre only once to feed the animals. No one witnessed the attack on Patricia, but it was believed that something might have triggered the wolves’ predatory instincts. After the attack, she was found nude, her whole body was covered with bite marks and the flesh from the arms and legs had been torn.

8. GuGu The Giant And Angry Panda

There is no denying that pandas are considered to be the cutest beasts on the planet, but they too have jaws that can tear a person apart. Three visitors from the Beijing Zoo were unlucky enough to get bitten by a panda. All these visitors had different stories. The first one jumped into the panda enclosure to cuddle with 240lb Gu Gu and was bitten on the legs and quickly rebuffed. The second visitor encountered Gu Gu at the time of feeding and he got attacked badly, the flesh was torn from his legs in such a way that the bones beneath could be seen. The third incident took place with Zhang who wanted to retrieve a toy that his child had dropped so he jumped into the panda enclosure. He ended up getting his legs bitten by Gu Gu.

7. Helen Schofield Crushed By Elephant

Mila had spent almost 3 decades as a circus performer and was a 39-year-old African elephant. The owner of the zoo where Mila was staying had plans to move her to a sanctuary in California since the Franklin Zoo, where Mila was living for 4 years, was a temporary arrangement. Mila ended up crushing the 42-year-old Helen Schofield, the owner, with her trunk. What made Mila attack Schofield is unknown but there were speculations that Mila was possibly traumatized by the circus where animals usually suffer terrible abuse. Mila might have been agitated and she ended up attacking her owner.

6. Jabari The Gorilla Attacks Children

This case is very interesting and different from the others as it ended up killing Jabari, the gorilla himself. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t attack anyone. He was enclosed in a 16-foot concave wall and was 13 years old. According to the reports, Jabari managed to scale the walls when he was being taunted by the kids. Jabari was three hundred pounds and violently attacked four people that included Keisha, a 24-year-old and her 3-year-old son Rivers. Jabari, at one point, was seen gnawing the head and chest of the child as he had him in his mouth. To save the rest of the people present, Jabari was shot by the SWAT team members.

5. Maddox Derkosh Falls Into Animal Enclosure

African painted dogs are usually known for disemboweling their prey and are sub-Saharan hunters with savage jaws. A 2-year-old named Maddock Derkosh who was seen sitting on a railing outside the Pittsburgh Zoo’s Painted Dog Bush suddenly couldn’t maintain his balance and tumbled off. He fell into an enclosure after landing on a protective netting. He got attacked by almost 3 dogs on the head and torso. The zoo workers did as much as they could to save Derkosh but one of the dogs refused to leave the body and it forced the police to open fire. The results of the autopsy indicated that Derkosh had survived the fall but was killed in the attack.

4. Rocky The Bear Attacks Trainer

Rocky was a bear that weighed 320 kilograms and was five years old when he attacked his trainer. Rocky had not only appeared in numerous commercials and movies but also appeared in the movie Semi Pro alongside Will Ferrell. One day, Rocky’s trainers Stephan and Randy Miller were preparing him for a promotional video and practicing routine maneuvers when Rocky suddenly attacked Stephan. He tossed him violently like a rag doll and bit him on his neck. The incident lasted for a few seconds as the trainers tried to handle the situation by using pepper spray which successfully pushed Rocky back. But Stephan had been badly bitten on his throat and bled to death because of it.

3. Stacey Knowiser Mauled By Tiger

Stacey Knowiser, a 38-year-old lady who had worked at a Palm Beach Zoo for three years, was attacked and killed by a thirteen-year-old male Malayan tiger. She was known as a tiger whisperer as she used to speak to these endangered felines in a language that only they could understand. Unfortunately, the same endangered species killed her. It is reported that she was attacked while cleaning the lair where the tigers slept and feeding the other felines. After the attack, the tiger remained at the zoo and was not euthanized. A spokesperson also said that it is necessary to keep the endangered species from becoming extinct.

2. Alexis Martinez Attacked In Loro Parque’s Orca Ocean

Alexis Martinez, a 29-year-old, was working at Loro Parque’s Orca Ocean where he was training whales for an upcoming show on a Christmas Eve. Loro Parque is a zoological park in the Canary Islands where many animals are kept including dolphins, birds, sea lions and four killer whales that had been loaned from SeaWorld. Martinez was in the water to prepare the whales for the act when suddenly a killer whale named Keto charged at him and dragged him to the bottom of the pool. Trainers rushed in order to halt the ferocious attack but they were unsuccessful. Keto resurfaced with Alexis’s limp body but by the time the CPR was initiated, he had blood pouring out of his nose and mouth and was already gone.

1. Attacked By Wolves At Kolmarden Wildlife Park

Zookeepers are responsible for feeding and taking care of the animals daily. One of the zookeepers who remains unidentified entered the wolf enclosure at Kolmarden Wildlife Park, which is known to be Sweden’s largest zoo, and was mauled by a pack of wolves. She was 30 years old and had been taking care of those eight wolves since they were puppies. The deadly attack took place at around 11 in the morning and there was nobody around who could save her. The body of the woman was recovered after the tireless efforts of the zookeepers. The woman had passed away after sustaining several severe injuries to her body.