One of the men mauled in a tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo pleaded for help from an emergency dispatcher and asked why it was taking so long to get it, according to a recording of the call.
The dispatcher told the young man that paramedics could not come to his aid until they could be sure they were not in danger of being attacked themselves, according to the recording released on Tuesday.
Either Paul or Kulbir Dhaliwal made the emergency call from outside a zoo cafe. Judging by the synopsis of the attacks given by police, the older brother, Kulbir, who was the last of the three victims, likely made the call.
"It's a matter of life and death!" the young man shouts minutes into the Dec. 25 call.
"I understand that, but at the same time we have to make sure the paramedics don't get chewed out, because if the paramedics get hurt then nobody's going to help you," the dispatcher replies.
Seconds later, the brother shouts, "My brother's about to die out here!"
The emergency dispatcher tells him to calm down before the frustrated caller asks, "Can you fly a helicopter out here? Because I don't see a [expletive] ambulance."
By the time the call heard on the nearly seven-minute recording begins, the escaped Siberian tiger already had killed the Dhaliwals' friend, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr., outside the animal's enclosure and was creeping closer to the cafe.
"At the cafe, we have the tiger!" an officer shouts into his radio just after 5:27pm, according to a recording of police dispatch traffic, about four minutes after the call between the brother and the emergency dispatcher ends. "We have the tiger attacking the victim!"
Less than a minute later, another call comes over the radio to stop shooting.
"We have the cat. We shot the cat," an officer says. "The victim is being attended to."
The brothers both suffered serious bite and claw wounds.
Zoo officials say the tiger climbed or jumped over the wall surrounding its pen. They have acknowledged that the wall was 1.2m shorter than the recommended minimum.
A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled on Tuesday that police have the legal authority to examine cell phones and a car belonging to the Dhaliwal brothers in its criminal investigation. The items have been the focus of both police and city officials, who believe they could contain evidence that the victims provoked the tiger in the moments leading to the attack.
Mark Geragos, the attorney representing the brothers, has insisted they did not taunt the animal. He did not immediately return a call for comment late on Tuesday.
A hearing on whether the city attorney's office may examine the items in a separate civil case was scheduled for yesterday.
Geragos has said help did not arrive for more than 30 minutes after they first reported the attack. Zoo officials have said that zoo personnel behaved heroically.
RSS