15 Times People Have Fallen Into Zoo Exhibits

3. Naked, Suicidal Chilean Man Survives Lion Attack

This incident occurred just six days before the infamous Harambe case, although it got much less media attention. Less than a week separated the two incidents, but they were similar in that both resulted in an animal being killed. In the case of the Santiago Metropolitan Zoo in the country of Chile, two animals were killed. This happened because a suicidal man decided to enter the animals’ enclosure. He removed his clothes and began to taunt a male and female lion. The lions began to maul him and drag him into their den, and in the end, the lions lost their lives, and the man did not. This isn’t the first problem this zoo has had; a lion and a puma have previously escaped from it, and faulty wiring caused a fire that killed four giraffes. Zoo officials said that shooting the two lions was “profoundly painful” for them. The suicidal man recovered.

2. African Painted Dogs Kill Toddler at Pittsburgh Zoo

Five years ago, yet another little boy fell into a zoo enclosure, and he lost his life. Little Maddox Derkosh was only two years old when he died in 2012. His mother had perched him atop a wooden railing on an observation deck to look at the African painted dogs, an endangered species, at the Pittsburgh Zoo. But the toddler slipped through her arms and fell 10 feet into the enclosure, where a pack of dogs attacked him. Most of the dogs moved away for zookeepers when they came in to rescue poor Maddox, although one of the dogs was aggressive, and he was shot and killed. Maddox’s mother, Elizabeth Derkosh, was cleared of any wrongdoing because it was found to be an accident, and the zoo was found to have met safety standards, although the Derkoshes and the zoo were involved in a lawsuit that was settled in 2014. The observation deck was removed, and the dogs were transferred to other zoos.

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