Man Seriously Mauled By Lions At Barcelona Zoo In Spain


Officials in Madrid say a man has been rescued from the lions’ enclosure at The Barcelona Zoo after being seriously mauled by three lions.

According to the Daily Mail, Barcelona’s fire department was called Sunday to the northeastern city’s zoo where witnesses had seen a man wearing a uniform jump into the den as horrified zoo visitors watched, according to a statement from the city government. Dressed in a military uniform, the man climbed over the railings and began scaling one of the walls in the enclosure before being grabbed by one of the lions and then dragged and thrown into a pit.

The 45-year-old was successfully rescued around 30 minutes later but was covered in scratches and bite marks over his entire body. He was taken to the city’s Hospital de la Vall D’Hebron where he remains in a serious but not life-threatening condition. According to local reports, the man, Jose Justo, is a neo-Nazi demonstrator. He was arrested last month in the city center after draping banners emblazoned with Swastikas over the famous Casa Mila building in an anti-abortion protest. He was also arrested in September for burning a flag at a monument to Spanish military hero Rafael Casanova.

It is not known whether for certain if the incident at the zoo was a demonstration, though fire fighters said the man could not have entered the enclosure accidentally. Emergency services used fire hoses to distance the lions from the man, who had been attacked and dragged into a tunnel within their enclosure reports Huffington Post. The security system makes it impossible for a person to fall into the enclosure. “It cannot have been by accident, to enter the enclosure you have to want to go in,” said chief fire fighter of the Bomberos de Barcelona, Hector Carmona.

While he emerged from the enclosure covered in bite marks and scratches, zoo keepers have insisted the lions were merely trying to play with him, Spanish news outlet 20minutos reports. “The intention was not to kill him, they were just trying to play with him,” Ignasi Armengol, director of Barcelona Municipal Services said. The zoo has since launched an official investigation into the incident.

In a previous report by The Inquisitr, several couples were attacked at different times by lions in the African bush. Those couples were having sex outdoors when the women were both mauled to death in the vicious attack.

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