Tiger King star Carole Baskin's big cat sanctuary in Florida was the scene of a bloody mess on Thursday when one of the reality TV star's tigers attacked a volunteer.
Kimba bit into Candy Couser's hand as she reached into an enclosure to open the door for feeding time, and would not let go until her fellow volunteers arrived on the scene.
Sources told TMZ Candy's arm was almost torn off at the shoulder.
Employees applied a tourniquet and pressure to the wounds until paramedics arrived and continued treatment stabilising the tiger attack victim and transporting her to a local Tampa hospital. She is expected to survive.
Kimba will be kept in quarantine for the next 30 days as a precaution, but Baskin insists the animal was "just acting normal" at feeding time.
She claimed Kimba was in an enclosure behind two guillotine-style tunnel doors and when Couser discovered the second access point clipped shut, she should not have reached in to open it.
"This is our universal signal NOT to open a gate without the co-ordinator coming to assist, but Candy said she just wasn't thinking when she reached in to unclip it," Baskin said in a Facebook post.
"It is against our protocols for anyone to stick any part of their body into a cage with a cat in it," she added.
