North Carolina

Escaped Lion Kills 22-Year-Old Intern at North Carolina Zoo

"The Conservators Center is devastated by the loss of a human life today," the zoo said in a statement

Twenty-two-year-old Alexandra Black, a college intern who had been employed at a North Carolina zoo for approximately two weeks, was killed Sunday after a lion escaped a locked space.

The Conservators Center in Burlington — between Greensboro and Durham — announced that the intern was killed during a routine cleaning of an animal enclosure at about 11:30 a.m. ET.

"While a husbandry team led by a professionally trained animal keeper was carrying out a routine enclosure cleaning, one of the lions somehow left a locked space and entered the space the humans were in and quickly killed one person," the zoo said in a statement.

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