A staff member was bitten by an animal at “Tiger King” star Carole Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue in Florida Thursday morning — and nearly got an arm ripped off.
Longtime volunteer Candy Couser was attacked around 8 a.m. at the Tampa zoo while feeding Kimba the tiger, Big Cat Rescue said in a statement.
“Kimba grabbed her arm and nearly tore it off at the shoulder,”said the notorious zoo featured on the hit Netflix show “Tiger King.
Other staffers ran over and “Kimba dropped his grip and Candy fell away from the side of the tunnel,” the zoo said.
One volunteer — a nurse — “held off the artery under Candy’s armpit to stop the bleeding” while another applied a tourniquet.
The nurse “packed her arm in ice packs to try and save it” before an ambulance arrived about 15 minutes later, the rescue center said.
The statement put responsiblity for the attack on the volunteer worker, saying she was attacked after ignoring a “universal signal NOT to open a gate” with the animal inside.
“Candy was still conscious and insisted that she did not want Kimba Tiger to come to any harm for this mistake,” the statement insisted, with the volunteer expected to survive. No other updates were given on her injuries nor if her arm will be saved.
“Candy said she just wasn’t thinking … It is against our protocols for anyone to stick any part of their body into a cage with a cat in it,” the zoo said. Couser could not immedately be reached for comment.
The tiger “was just acting normal due to the presence of food and the opportunity,” the center insisted.
Kimba will still be placed in quarantine for the next 30 days as a “precaution” as grief counseling was offered to witnesses.
“Carole reminded everyone that this sort of tragedy can happen in the blink of an eye and that we cannot relax our guard for a second around these dangerous cats,” the big cat rescue said.
Baskin became famous overnight for her role in Netflix’s hit series “Tiger King,” which centered around rival big cat zoo owner Joe Exotic and his failed murder-for-hire plot to kill her.
Big Cat Rescue, home to hundreds of exotic cats, is closed to the public during the COVID-19 crisis.
In June, Baskin was granted control of Exotic’s zoo in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, as part of their heated legal drama.
Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, is serving a 22-year sentence.
