Russian zookeeper gets mauled by tiger

By NINA GARZA

Zookeeper Nadezhda Srivastava, was feeding 16-year-old Siberian tiger, Typhoon, when he jumped on her and started mauling her.

Srivastava told reporters that she tried to get away but the cat put all his weight on top of her and she could not move. Pictures show Srivastave cover her face and put her elbows up in order to keep the tiger from biting her head. After the tiger had torn up her arms she turned to get away but he then sunk his teeth into her back.

People who were visiting the zoo saw what was happening and tried to help by throwing things at the tiger in order to distract him.

Srivastava fought for her life for about 10 minutes before she was finally able to run away to safety from the tiger. She was taken to the hospital with a shattered wrist, several broken fingers and a couple broken ribs. Luckily, there was no damage to her nerves.

When talking to reporters, Srivastava said that she is so grateful for the visitors of the zoo that were trying to help her. She stated, If it were not for the visitors of the zoo, I would no longer be alive.”

The news media reported this story very well because they throughly described everything that occurred within the 10 minutes that Sricastava was battling the tiger. Although 10 minutes does not seem like a long time, it felt like eternity for Scricastave and the news media did a really great job in relating that to the public.