Newly released video filmed by tiger mauling victim shows him calmly approaching beast moments before he’s killed
The man mauled to death by a tiger in a UK wildlife park had posted his own video as he calmly approached the resting predator — with his shocking footage catching the screams of onlookers moments before the deadly attack.
William Chapman shared his own video to Instagram minutes before his death as he walked up to Altai, a 420-pound Siberian tiger, after climbing into its enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park in England on Saturday.
“Oh my God!” another park visitor can be heard yelling in the background as Chapman walked toward Altai, who was lying on a raised wooden platform inside his enclosure.
Moments later, Chapman was seen in bystanders’ videos being bitten by the tiger — even raising a finger at it, as if telling it off in a pause of the deadly mauling.
Chapman — whom police called a “vulnerable man in his early 20s” — had previously posted bizarre photos to the same Instagram account, including one of him holding a Bible and a crossbow with an arrow in his mouth.
Before the attack Saturday, zoo-goers recalled seeing him dancing happily and even asking a stranger to take a photo of him with Altai in the background, asking, “One more, one more, one more!”
“Thank you, lady,” he was heard saying in the footage the witness has handed over to investigators.
“He was so happy,” Del Taylor, the woman who snapped his pics, said.
Onlookers said Chapman appeared “not attached to reality” as the tiger started attacking him, with him ordering the beast to “stop being naughty” as it mauled at him.
Park workers fired two warning shots with a shotgun to scare off Altai, who retreated to his pen as officials rushed to try and save Chapman, who was instead pronounced dead at the scene.
No further details have yet been released about why he jumped into the enclosure, after it was reported that he traveled to the park alone from the nearby town of Doncaster, where he was living.
Yorkshire Wildlife Park, which remained closed on Sunday, confirmed that Altai was “safe and well,” and said the tiger would not be euthanized following the incident.
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