New Delhi: In a horrying video that has gone viral on social media, a lion can be seen ripping off the finger of a zoo worker who tries to taunt him by poking his hand through the bars of his cage. The incident happened at Jamaica Zoo, near Santa Cruz in St Elizabeth, on May 20, The Daily Mail reported.
The video shows the zoo worker sticking his fingers into the lion's enclosure and trying to stroke the animal's mane in front of around 15 visitors. While the lion ignores it initially, he soon attacks and clamps its jaws around the man's finger.
The video then shows the man desperately trying to pull his hand away but in vain. After much back and forth, the man fails to free his right ring finger from the lion's mouth and it gets severed from his hand.
An eyewitness to the horrific incident told The Jamaica Observer that she first thought it to be a "joke". "When it happened, I thought it was a joke. I didn’t realise the seriousness of it because it's their job to put on a show. Obviously, when he fell on the ground everybody realised that it was serious. Everybody started to panic," the woman said.
"The entire skin and about the first joint of his finger was gone," she further said.
In a statement, the zoo managment said, "The actions displayed in a video by a contractor to Jamaica Zoo, is tragic and do not represent the safety procedures and policies that must be adhered to at all times at Jamaica Zoo."
"It is an unfortunate event that should never have happened, and we the family of Jamaica Zoo are doing everything to assist the gentleman in moving forward," the Daily Main quoted the management as saying.