Tiger mauls handler at amusement park

A tiger mauled its handler at a popular amusement park on the Gold Coast in Australia, leaving the experienced worker hospitalized with “serious lacerations and puncture wounds” to her arm.

The unnamed handler, 47, was working with one of Dreamworld’s nine tigers when, according to the Queensland Ambulance Service, she was attacked shortly before 9 a.m. Monday local time.

Park staff were able to restrain the tiger before paramedics arrived.

“The patient obviously had received some serious lacerations and puncture wounds from the animal,” Queensland Ambulance Service acting district director Justin Payne told reporters.

“Thankfully on their arrival the bleeding had been managed very well by first aid providers there at Dreamworld, which was excellent to see,” Payne said.

The handler “was quite pale and feeling unwell,” but is now in a stable condition at Gold Coast University Hospital, he added.

In a statement Dreamworld said Monday’s attack was an “isolated and rare incident” and the business’s “immediate focus is on the support of the team member.”

Dreamworld declined to answer further questions on the welfare of the tiger.

The park remained open to the public on Monday.

Dreamworld’s Tiger Island exhibit is billed as an “interactive” experience where visitors can “can get so close you could feel the breath of a tiger.”

The park’s website advertises the opportunity for visitors to feed some of its nine Bengal and Sumatran tigers.

Monday’s attack in not the first time a tiger has injured staff at Dreamworld. In 2011, a 160-kilogram Bengal tiger named Keto bit two handlers in two separate incidents, according to local media reports at the time.