On World Tourism Day, there was a lot of movement in the Madrid zoo early in the morning when Malabo , a gorilla weighing 200 kilos , unexpectedly attacked his 46-year-old keeper when she was bringing breakfast to his cage in a bounded interior area with triple door.
The reason for the attack was none other than the fright and surprise that the animal felt when it did not perceive the girl’s entrance when he entered her space.
At that moment, weighing 200 kilos, the Malabo gorilla pounced on the caretaker , shaking her from side to side . According to the experts, if the animal had used all its strength, we would most likely be talking about adeadly episode for the zoo worker. In any case, the caregiver has had to be transferred from the emergency room by the Samur doctors, in serious condition, to the Clinical Hospital of Madrid .
To keep the animal away from the attack, according to the victim’s companions, they used fire extinguishers in order to keep it away as much as possible.
Human error
Part of the attack by a gorilla on a keeper at the Madrid Zoo
The person in charge of the center has assured, in statements to the media, “that everything was due to human error“. The surprise that the gorilla got when he saw the worker at the moment when she was about to eat her food “was the cause of the attack”. After the event, Malabo was sedated and now a speedy physical recovery is expected – he has various traumas- and psychological for his caregiver.From the moment of the accident, the security protocol
was activated immediately , so, as previously mentioned, several caregivers went to the cage and managed to drive the gorilla away with the smoke from the fire extinguishers
As explained by the spokesman for Samur – Civil Protection
, Jose Ramon Santamarina, “after rescuing his companion, they reassured the animal with an anesthetic dart and moved it inside the facilities. A team of ours, moved to the area together with the Municipal Police, treated the woman, who suffered trauma cranioencephalic and thoracic , with open fractures in both arms and multiple contusions”.
Malabo is a coastal gorilla and was raised in the Madrid zoo with a bottle. It is a “very loved” animal, his caregivers say, reiterating the wish for a speedy recovery for the injured companion. Yesterday the gorilla facility was closed to the public while all the facts were clarified. Malabo, according to the zoo, is also in good condition.
