Brazilian teen killed after climbing into lion enclosure at zoo

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A Brazilian teenager was mauled to death by a lioness in full view of zoo visitors after scaling a six-meter wall and safety fencing and shimmying down a tree into the enclosure, authorities said.

Gerson de Melo Machado, 19, struggled with severe mental health issues and dreamed of being a lion tamer, according to those who knew him.

The municipal government of the northeastern coastal city of Joao Pessoa said Machado had “deliberately invaded the lioness’s enclosure” at the Arruda Camara Zoobotanical Park on Sunday morning.

Viral videos of the attack showed the lioness, Leona, lying next to the glass separating her from visitors, who gasped in shock as the teen climbed down a tree.

The lioness made a beeline for the tree, pulling Machado down to the ground. Bushes were seen shaking, and the teen stood up one more time before disappearing from view.

“It got him. It got him,” visitors can be heard saying, with exclamations of “my God!”

Flavio Fabres, head of the Joao Pessoa Legal Medical Institute, told AFP that Machado had been identified via his fingerprints.

The cause of death was “bleeding due to injuries to the neck vessels.”

On Monday state environmental authorities carried out an on-site inspection at the zoo, which remains closed, according to the municipality and the park.

Park vet Thiago Nery defended the safety standards of the enclosure and said the incident was “completely unpredictable.”

The park said that “euthanasia was never considered” for Leona, who “shows no aggressive behavior outside the context of the incident.”

‘Tragedy waiting to happen’

The government statement said Machado’s actions may have been a “possible suicide attempt.”

Child protection counselor Veronica Oliveira said in a video on Instagram that she had accompanied Machado for eight years as he “went through all the institutional care in this city.”

She said his mother and grandparents suffered from schizophrenia, but Machado never got the care he needed from the state.

In other media interviews, Oliveira said Machado had dreamed of being a lion tamer and had once cut through an airport fence and hid in the landing gear of a plane he thought was going to Africa.

Machado’s cousin Icara Menezes told journalists on Monday that in the week before the accident “he said he needed to save money, that he wanted to go to Africa.”

“He practically spent half his life in prison,” she said.

“He was never a bad boy, he was just a boy who needed support and never had it.”

Edmilson Alves, director of a prison unit in Joao Pessoa, said in an Instagram video that Machado had been held 16 times in juvenile and adult detention centers and was “a person who needed help” but “nobody in the family wanted him.”

Appearing in the video, the prison’s disciplinary chief, Ivison Lira de Paiva said Machado had the intellect of a five-year-old, and his case was a “tragedy waiting to happen.”