International

4-yr-old escapes with minor injuries after creeping into gorilla cage

Published

8 years ago

May 29, 2016

4-yr-old escapes with minor injuries after creeping into gorilla cage

Relief came the way of the parents of a 4-year-old boy who crept through a barrier at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden and into a gorilla enclosure, where he was picked up by a 400-pound, 17-year-old male gorilla which didn’t harm the child.

According to the zoo’s director, Thane Maynard, “After the boy — who has not been identified — crawled through a public barrier at Gorilla World around 4 p.m., he fell about 10 to 12 feet into a moat, where he was picked up and carried around by the gorilla, named Harambe, for about 10 minutes.”

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A move was then made to rescue the child from the hands of the Gorilla when a Cincinnati Zoo employee shot the gorilla when the child was in between his legs, and zoo employees then unlocked the gate and two fire fighters quickly retrieved the child.

Maynard informed that once the child was in a safe area, he was given a full trauma assessment, and then transported to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

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