A teen girl working at an animal sanctuary in Tennessee tripped and ended up getting attacked by a tiger.
Somer Stevens, an 18-year-old employee at Tiger Haven in Kingston, was changing the water for one of the tigers, Eeyore, when she slipped on some debris. She fell, right toward the tiger's cage.
"I just stumbled over the debris on the ground. I fell into the cage, and then as soon as the tiger grabbed my hand, I knew that he had me and that it was over," Somer told Inside Edition.
Once the tiger latched on, there was no getting him to let go. "He grabbed my hand first and pulled my arm in further and just got it down its throat," she recalled.
Somer cried out for her boyfriend, who also works at Tiger Haven. His quick thinking got her freed. "He picked up a piece of bamboo off of the ground and put it through the fence and shoved it down the tiger's throat," she explained.
Once she was freed, Somer lay there in shock. She was rushed to the hospital with a nearly severed arm. She's already undergone five surgeries to save it.
What's worse, Somer's employers aren't accepting any responsibility for the attack. As her attorney explains, they believe it was on her for getting too close. "Within minutes they're painting a story that Somer did something to bring this upon herself that just didn’t happen," he told Inside Edition.
It's a horrible situation, but one good thing did come out of it. The next day, Somer's boyfriend proposed.
"He just said that he loved me and he wanted me to be in his life forever," the 18-year-old gushed.
