A 54-year-old caretaker at a zoo in India died Sunday after being brutally mauled by an angry hippo at the animal park, according to reports.
Santosh Kumar Mahto was attacked by the animal at Ranchi’s Bhagwan Birsa Biological Park after he went into the hippopotamus compound to remove a newborn calf for feeding, The Indian Express reported.
The protective mother hippo attacked Mahto, critically injuring him.
“Unfortunately, the caretaker succumbed to his injuries on Sunday at a private hospital here,” zoo director Jabbar Singh told the outlet. “The zoo authority took care of the hospital cost.
“We will also try to get a job for a member of his family,” Singh added.
The horrifying incident angered the rest of the zoo’s 112 caretakers, who shut down the park’s main gates in protest to the authority, the Express said.
According to the Times of India, Mahto suffered multiple injuries in the attack, including having several limbs crushed by the hippo.
In December, a worker at another Indian zoo was attacked and killed by a hippo.
In that incident, a 40-year-old caretaker at the Wajid Ali Shah Zoological Garden in Uttar Pradesh went into the animal’s compound to clean it and was fatally attacked.
According to zoo officials, the hippo was locked behind a gate while the cleaning was being done but somehow broke free and charged at the worker, killing him.
A second worker was injured in the attack but survived.
