One of the men mauled in a tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo pleaded for help from an emergency dispatcher and asked why it was taking so long to get it, according to a recording of the call.
The dispatcher told the young man that paramedics could not come to his aid until they could be sure they were not in danger of being attacked themselves, according to the recording released Tuesday.
Either Paul or Kulbir Dhaliwal made the emergency call from outside a zoo cafe. Judging by the synopsis of the attacks given by police, the older brother, Kulbir, who was the last of the three victims, likely made the call.
"It's a matter of life and death!" the young man shouts minutes into the December 25 call.
"I understand that, but at the same time we have to make sure the paramedics don't get chewed out, because if the paramedics get hurt then nobody's going to help you," the dispatcher replies.
Seconds later, the brother shouts, "My brother's about to die out here!"
The emergency dispatcher tells him to calm down before the frustrated caller asks, "Can you fly a helicopter out here? Because I don't see a (expletive) ambulance."
By the time the call heard on the nearly seven-minute recording begins, the escaped Siberian tiger already had killed the Dhaliwals' friend, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr, outside the animal's enclosure and was creeping closer to the cafe.
"At the cafe, we have the tiger!" an officer shouts into his radio just after 5:27 pm, according to a recording of police dispatch traffic, about four minutes after the call between the brother and the emergency dispatcher ends. "We have the tiger attacking the victim!"
Less than a minute later, another call comes over the radio to stop shooting. "We have the cat. We shot the cat," an officer says. "The victim is being attended to." The brothers both suffered serious bite and claw wounds.
Zoo officials say the tiger jumped over a wall they acknowledged was 1.2 meters short of regulation.
Meanwhile, police obtained a search warrant from a judge yesterday to examine the cell phones and a car belonging to the Dhaliwal brothers for its ongoing criminal investigation, said spokesman Sergeant Neville Gittens. The items have been the focus of both police and city officials, who believe they could contain evidence that the victims provoked the tiger in the moments leading to the attack.
Mark Geragos, the attorney representing the brothers, has insisted they did not taunt the animal.
A hearing on whether the city attorney's office may examine the items in a separate civil case was scheduled for yesterday.
Geragos has said help did not arrive for more than 30 minutes after they first reported the attack. Zoo officials have said that zoo personnel behaved heroically.
The recordings also reveal disbelief among zoo employees about the escape. An unidentified male zoo employee called the emergency dispatcher at 5:05 pm to relay a report from a female employee who encountered the frantic brothers outside the cafe.
The emergency call captured the conversation between the two employees.
"I don't know if they are on drugs or not," the woman is overheard speaking on his two-way radio. "They are screaming about an animal that has attacked them and there isn't an animal out." The man then tries to relay her remarks, when the female employee interjects: "He is saying he got attacked by a lion."
The man is heard on the emergency call, saying, "That is virtually impossible ... I can't imagine how he could have possibly gotten attacked by a lion.
"I think this guy is on something," the woman says.
"They don't know if he got attacked by a lion.
"They are both very agitated and they might be on drugs," the man tells the dispatcher.
At 5:10 pm, five minutes after the first emergency call was made, word reaches the male employee that an animal was loose. He starts telling other visitors that they must leave the grounds immediately.
"We have a Code 1. They say they have a tiger out," he told the dispatcher.
The extent of Sousa's injuries became known at 5:15 pm, when either a paramedic or another zoo employee is heard: "This person needs help now."
Source: China Daily/Agencies
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article