Man in gorilla suit shot with tranquilliser dart at Tenerife zoo

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Man in gorilla suit shot with tranquilliser dart at Tenerife zoo - Telegraph

A man is recovering in hospital after being shot with a tranquilliser dart when he was dressed as a gorilla at a zoo

By Harriet Alexander

1:55PM BST 05 Jun 2014

UPDATE: Zoo says man shot with tranquilliser dart at Tenerife zoo was not wearing gorilla suit

Frantic zoo keepers in Tenerife rushed to call an ambulance after a vet shot a tranquilliser dart at a man dressed as a gorilla.

Police on the Spanish island received a call from a panicked member of the public, who said that a gorilla had escaped from its pen in Loro Park zoo, and was seen running around the theme park.

A vet was called, and on spotting the creature fired a tranquilliser dart at its leg with enough sedative to fell a 200kg beast.

But to his horror, the vet - who had only been in the job for two months - realised that the creature was in fact an employee of the zoo, dressed in a gorilla suit, who was staging a mock escape to practise their emergency routines.

The 35-year-old man was taken to the island's University Hospital after the shooting, which happened after the call to the police was made at 11.40am on Monday, according to La Opinion de Tenerife.

He was said to be in a serious condition, having suffered an allergic reaction to the tranquilliser, but was expected to make a full recovery.

 

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UPDATE:Man shot with tranquilliser dart at Tenerife zoo 'was not wearing gorilla suit'

A Spanish zoo has denied that one of its keepers was wearing a gorilla suit when mistakenly shot with a tranquilliser dart by veterinary staff.
Authorities at the Loro Parque on the Canary Island of Tenerife insisted late on Thursday it was a simple accident that occurred during a routine emergency drill.
"A routine exercise to simulate the escape of a gorilla from its enclosure was carried out on Monday during which a zookeeper was accidentally hit by a tranquilliser dart that vets use in these instances," said the statement issued by the Canary Island zoo.
"The zookeeper was immediately treated by emergency services and admitted for observation to the University Hospital, Tenerife."

The incident was reported in the local Tenerife paper with the erroneous explanation that the keeper had been wearing a gorilla suit in order to make the practice drill more realistic and that one of the vets had fired at him after mistaking him for a real ape.
In fact, zoo management explained on Thursday that during the course of the exercise the vet accidentally released the tranquilliser dart into the leg of a zookeeper who was in the empty enclosure with him.
"The incident took place just after the vet had been informed that the alarm had been raised for a practice drill and not a real emergency," explained Patricia Delponti, a spokesman from Loro Parque.
"He did not mean to hit the zookeeper and the zookeeper was not pretending to be a gorilla. He was wearing his normal uniform and had just informed the vet that it was a practice drill. It was simply an accident."
The 35-year-old zookeeper has now fully recovered after being given an immediate antidote to the tranquilliser and treated in hospital.
"Obviously he was sleeping a lot after being shot with a tranquilliser meant for a 200kg gorilla and was under observation in hospital to make sure there were no lasting effects. But he has made a full recovery and is already back at work," she said.
"Someone obviously got the wrong end of the stick about how we carry out a practice drill but the truth is there was no gorilla suit involved," she said.

 

[Gold Maven]

I raise deer, and those tranquilizers can be deadly to humans, he's lucky to be alive.

 

[Goose-0]

How far off the ground do you get them?