MADRID (AP) – Authorities in northern Cantabria in Spain are investigating how an elephant killed a worker at a local zoo.
According to the Cantabria regional government, 44-year-old Joaquín Gutiérrez died in a hospital on Tuesday, hours after a female elephant struck him with his trunk while cleaning his fence in the Cabárceno Nature Park near Santander.
The blow struck Gutiérrez back and he slammed his head against the pen’s bars, officials said.
Gutiérrez has been working with elephants at the zoo for almost 20 years, local tourism chief Javier López Marcano said in a statement on the local government website.
The elephant that hit him had a foot infection and is probably pregnant, Marcano said. She weighs more than 4 tons (4.4 tons).
Zoo and regional officials could not be contacted immediately on Friday.
Police and CANTUR, the local tourism organization running Cabárceno, are investigating the attack.