Wildebeest attacks and throws woman about at North Carolina zoo

Zootastic

A woman attacked by an exotic animal at a North Carolina zoo is out of the hospital and recovering Monday night.

The staff at Zootastic in Troutman was taking school children on a drive through the park on a wagon on Oct. 27.

A mother arrived late with her children and zoo bookkeeper Kimberly Hillman offered to drive the children to the wagon which had already departed.

"When she got out of the car she was walking the kids to the wagon," Zootastic owner Scottie Brown told WSOC-TV. "The wildebeest came over and she shooed it."

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That harmless motion sparked the attack that happened in front of dozens of school children.

"It hit her, threw her up in the air. She hit (the) ground, it picked her up again and threw her up in the air, and I was getting off the tractor at the time and I ran and got between her and the wildebeest," Brown said.

Hillman spent about a week in the hospital recovering. She has a black eye from the attack among other injuries.

Brown said this is the first time anyone has ever gotten hurt at Zootastic and he plans on it being the last by making sure that he strictly enforces the rules that are already in place. That means that no one is inside of the grounds are allowed outside of a wagon or other vehicle.

"It was a total misdirection of what we normally do here and it will never happen again," he said.