A tiger ripped off the arm of a woman working at the Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Oklahoma on Saturday morning.
According to officials at the exotic animal park who spoke with USA Today, the woman was in the middle of either placing or taking away a lock on a smaller cage where a tiger was being housed.
Garvin County Undersheriff Jim Mullet wrote a statement detailing witnesses' accounts of the attack, which occurred at around 10 a.m. CST. Park owner Joe Schreibvogel wrote on the park's Facebook that the female employee "placed her hand inside an adult male tiger cage. She was wearing a large goose down jacket which got bunched up inside the cage wire, not allowing her to get her hand back outside the cage wire fast enough and the tiger grabbed her hand pulling her left arm through a 4-inch square hole."
The woman was immediately seen by zoo staff and medics, USA Today reported. An ambulance rushed to a helicopter that transported her to the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City. According to Mullet, she went into surgery shortly after she arrived at the hospital.
Schreibvogel told USA Today that the woman was conscious throughout the whole ordeal.
"During the entire event, she was awake and saying it was her fault and plans to return to work," he stated.
The employee's name hasn't been disclosed yet, as the zoo must reach family members to alert them of the occurrence.
The park, located around 40 miles south of the state's capital, is closed "until further notice, and the tiger will be held in quarantine until the investigation is complete," Mullett reported.
Officials from the zoo said the tiger will not be put down. The employee did not follow safety measures that specify workers cannot put "any part of the body inside a cage."
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the member of our staff that was injured," the statement read.
