Tourist asks for US$1,500 compensation after being bitten by zoo lion, suffering serious injuries

Do you dare to take a photo with the big cat?

A tourist faced a shocking accident when she was visiting a Safari park in Ukraine and taking pictures with a zoo lion. The big cat turned mad and dragged her on the ground, leading her seriously injured.

It's unknown if she can get her arm full recovery and she is asking the park for around US$1,538 as a compensation, but the refused her demand.

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Olga Solomina, 46, participated in the event of "Being with lions" hold by the park since she was attracted by the famous footage of Oleg Zubkov, the director of the safari park, using slippers to tame a lion.

She said she was told to kneel down and touch the lion's mane for photographs. But the next moment, the lion she was touching suddenly pounced on her arm and dragged her "like a rag doll" on the floor. What's more terrible was other lions started to move their feet.

She was so scared to close her eyes and felt she would be torn apart by the animals. "It lasted several seconds that felt like eternity for me.", Olga said.

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Oleg was nearby at that time. He immediately drove the lions and took her away. The tourist was seriously injured but she claimed she was treated only with a towel wrapping on her arm by the park's staff.

"He (Oleg) asked me not to call the police or an ambulance, saying that my injuries were not severe", the victim recalled.

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A staff member treated Olga's lacerations with hydrogen peroxide for disinfection. Then a vet injected her with lidocaine and stitched the wound. "Instead of anesthetizing me they gave me a bottle of cognac. They did not give me any antibiotics.", she said.

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Over the next 24 hours, her temperature escalated. She finally called an ambulance when she was in incredible pain. Doctors diagnosed she was seriously infected and had to undergo surgery.

"The infection got into her body from the teeth of the animal. It is a very dangerous infection. She underwent surgery. Her health condition became better, but she needs further treatment. At the moment it's still not clear if she will regain full usage of her arm," doctor Nikolai Vlasov said.

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Oleg later said Olga was drunk when she tried to touch the lion's mane.  "Obviously, the young lion did not like the smell of alcohol that came from Olga," Oleg explained. 

The safari park refused to give 1,000,000-ruble (around US$1,500)  compensation, saying she signed a disclaimer accepting that the excursion was dangerous.

Police are investigating the case. 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government blamed a contractor Tuesday for a loose railway fitting that caused a train car to derail on the president’s pet project, a tourist rail route known as the Maya Train.

The derailment on March 25 proved embarrassing for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who views the $20 billion railway as one of his signature building projects. No one was injured in the mishap.

Critics have said the project, which runs in a loop around the Yucatan peninsula, is wasteful and has damaged the environment. But others have expressed concern about the haste with which it is being built. López Obrador wants to finish it before he leaves office Sept. 30.

Illustrating the problem, Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said that the rail switch involved in the accident is eventually designed to be operated automatically.

But because the automated system is not yet in place, but the president wanted part of the line running anyway, the switch — which shunts train cars onto another track — has to be manually loosened, moved and returned to its original position by hand.

In one of those operations, someone apparently didn't tighten the fitting down again.

Sandoval said “this is what was found, that this clamp wasn't tightened down.”

He said that the company which made the trains, Alstom, and the company that built that stretch of the rail line, Azvindi, “are analyzing and reviewing the amount of damage” done in the mishap.

López Obrador ordered the project built through a stretch of jungle, despite warnings from activists about the damage that would do to the sensitive limestone caves on the Yucatan peninsula.

The president promised to build an elevated platform for the rail line to avoid crushing the caves, but the concrete and steel pilings to support that were punched right into the caves.

In March, activists published photos of those steel and cement pilings being driven directly through the roofs of the caves.

The network of caves, sinkhole lakes and underground rivers along Mexico’s Caribbean coast are both environmentally sensitive and have been found to hold some of the oldest human remains in North America.

They provide the region’s only fresh water source, because there are no surface rivers on the flat, limestone peninsula.

Because the caves were dry some 10,000 years ago, humans and animals used them before they were mostly flooded at the end of the last Ice Age about 8,000 years ago, essentially preserving the relics from being disturbed.

In December, López Obrador inaugurated another, partly finished section of the train to the north and east, between Cancun and the colonial city of Campeche.

The 950-mile line runs in a rough loop around the Yucatan peninsula and it’s meant to connect beach resorts and archaeological sites.

The train was partly built by the Mexican army and will be run by the armed forces, to whom López Obrador has entrusted more projects than any other president in at least a century.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

FILE - An inaugural train travels on the Maya Train rail route with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on board, near Chochola, Quintana Roo State, Mexico, Dec. 15, 2023. The Mexican government blamed a contractor Tuesday, April 2, 2024, for a loose railway fitting that caused a train car to derail on the Maya Train rail route. (AP Photo/Martin Zetina, File)