An Indian mother heroically fought off a fully-grown tiger after the big cat tore through the woman to get to her infant child. Mother and son, although bloodied and battered, survived the ordeal.
AN INDIAN mother heroically fought off a fully grown tiger after the big cat tore through the woman to get to her infant child. Mother and son, although bloodied and battered, survived the ordeal.
Archana Choudhary, who lives in Rohania village, close to a tiger reserve, fought off a tiger with her bare hands after it tried to get at her 15-month-old son, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.
The tiger’s powerful claws pierced Choudhary’s lung, tearing into the 25-year-old mother while she fought it off for two minutes. She suffered a punctured lung and deep gaping wounds on her body, while her son was treated for head injuries after the tiger briefly held him in its mouth.
Choudhary, who lives with her family in the village in rural India, had taken the child outside to relieve himself. The village is within the Umaria district, close to the Bandhavgarh National Park which was declared a tiger reserve in 1993.
The tiger attacked the child and had clamped down on the infant’s neck and tried to sink its jaws into his neck, according to the Times of India. Upon seeing this, Choudhary immediately pounced into action, screaming and using her bare hands to protect the child from the tiger.
Her screams drew the attention of villagers nearby. They used sticks to chase the tiger away.
The mother and child were taken to ICU and given anti-rabies injections, said civil surgeon Dr Misthi Ruhela, in the city of Jabalpur, according to the BBC.
A doctor told BBC Hindi that the wounds on the child’s body were not serious, but those on the mother were.
Senior government official Sanjeev Srivastava said efforts were being made to ensure more tigers did not escape from the reserve.
India’s tiger reserves were set up in 1973 and are governed by Project Tiger, which is administered by the National Tiger Conservation Authority. Up until 2018, 50 protected areas have been designated tiger reserves.
India is home to 80% of the world’s tigers. There were 2 967 tigers within the reserves, according to 2018 records.
