Worker killed in tiger attack at Palm Beach Zoo identified

Worker killed in tiger attack at Palm Beach Zoo identified

An agent at the Palm Beach Zoo died in a Malayan tiger advance while assuming a accepted action Friday afternoon, a zoo backer said.

Zoo admiral accepted tiger abettor Stacey Konwesier was dead Friday by a tiger.

Zoo backer Naki Carter said Konweiser was advancing a macho tiger for a appearance at the zoo alleged "Tiger Talk" just afore 2 p.m. if the advance happened.

Konweiser, a three-year adept of the zoo and tiger expert, was accomplishing accustomed procedural accomplishments with the tiger if it attacked her. Her bedmate aswell works for the zoo.

"Stacey was an expert," Carter said. "She committed her activity to her mission of attention tigers."

The macho tiger was bound subdued, acceptance admiral to ability the woman. She was taken to St. Mary's Medical Center, area she died.

"This is a ancestors who is in aching appropriate now," Carter said of the zoo employees. "We all, myself included, angled over. We're a close accumulation actuality at Palm Beach Zoo. There were tears."

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Agency will be investigating the death. The Occupational Assurance and Health Administration, and affliction attorneys were at the zoo.

"It's actual new and all the data are still advancing in," said Carol Lyn Parrish, backer for the wildlife commission. "Because it's an alive analysis for us, we are not absolution any information."

Malayan tigers are "an endangered brand _ beneath than 250 in the wild. Four reside actuality at Palm Beach Zoo," Carter said.

Zoo keepers advice brand the tigers to accomplish abiding they don't go extinct, Carter said. "So that's what was traveling on with this babysitter actuality today, and this is just an adverse situation," she said.

At no time was any bedfellow at accident of injury, and anon afterwards the attack, all guests were escorted out of the zoo, Carter said. The zoo charcoal closed.

"The tiger never escaped," Carter said. "We accept assurance protocols for if incidents like this occur. We accomplished those assurance protocols."

Officials put the zoo on lockdown and were administering aegis sweeps to accomplish abiding the zoo's 500 animals are in their applicable places, Carter said.

Alena Rodriguez, 25, said she was at the zoo with a acquaintance if she heard of an emergency underway. As the emergency unfolded, there was a commotion of the tiger potentially getting on the loose, she said.

"We were aggravating to avenue and they affected us into the allowance shop," she said.

Worker killed in tiger attack at Palm Beach Zoo identified

Rodriguez and about 25 people, eight of them kids, were herded into the allowance shop, she said.

"It was actual sporadic," she said. "People didn't apperceive what was traveling on."

Rodriguez saw the tiger at its display at 1 p.m. and absitively to appear aback for the appointed 2 p.m. feeding. She came aback to the tiger cage at 1:50 p.m. and saw a trainer run by and say, "We charge to evacuate."

Rodriguez said that she and her acquaintance approved to avenue the zoo and were told to break in the allowance shop. She said she didn't apperceive what was traveling on, but she heard sirens. She wasn't frightened, but was afraid for the children, she said.

Then 20 account later, she heard from a zoo agent that the tiger was defended and the zoo was bankrupt for the day. The zoo gave attendees a chargeless canyon to go back.

(Staff writers Attiyya Anthony and Adam Sacasa contributed to this report.)

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