Tiger Kills Zoo Worker in UK

Tiger Kills Zoo Worker in UK, A young zookeeper died last night after being mauled by one of her Sumatran tigers.

Sarah McClay, 24, from the Barrow area in Cumbria, was in the tiger enclosure at a zoo in the Lake District when she was attacked.

Police are investigating whether systems keeping the animals separate from keepers 'failed' at South Lakes Wild Animal Park, Dalton-in-Furness.

But Owner David Gill said it was 'not the park's fault' and that Miss McClay had broken safety protocols by going into the tiger enclosure while the animals were loose.

Ambulance crews said Miss McClay had suffered ‘very traumatic injuries’ to her head and neck and went into cardiac arrest.

She was resuscitated by paramedics and airlifted to Royal Preston Hospital following the attack at around 4pm yesterday, but she later died.

Mr Gill told Sky News that zoo staff had heard a scream over the radio and ran to the scene.

'Within two minutes we had firearms on scene but sadly we just could not get a clean shot to do anything about it because of exactly where the animal was, so we did our best, we moved around to find a shot,' he said.

'Very, very quickly I let off two shots to frighten the animals and it did what it needed to do which was to lift them off and they ran back into the house and other keepers locked them up.

'Once we knew we were secure and safe we went into the enclosure to retrieve Sarah.'

Visitors were asked to leave the wildlife park yesterday before it closed early. It has reopened today.

Police and Barrow Borough Council are investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Today officers issued a statement saying: 'Sarah fell victim to an attack by a Sumatran tiger whilst, police believe, going about her routine duties in the big cat enclosure building.

'The enclosure concerned consists of a number of compartments both indoor and outdoor connected by lockable doors. Keepers are required to enter various parts enclosures in the course of their routine duties.

'However, systems are in place to ensure that animals and keepers remain apart at all times. At some stage this has failed and the animal and Sarah came together with tragic consequences. The police are working to establish whether this was a result of human or technical factors.'

Police are not treating the death as a criminal investigation but said they were keeping 'an open mind' about what caused the tragedy.

Mr Gill said Miss McClay had worked at the wildlife park for a number of years and was ‘very proficient’ in her work with big cats.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday: ‘After investigation by the authorities here and the police, it does seem that she just basically failed to follow the correct procedures.

‘For some unknown reason, an inexplicable reason, because there is no reason for why she did it, she opened the door and went into the tiger enclosure and straight into the tigers, and now we'll never know why.’

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