(US-UT) Survivor of zoo chimp attack celebrates

[Chadwick Bovee]

http://www.standard.net/live/news/168349 Sunday, March 29, 2009 Survivor of zoo chimp attack celebrates By Becky Cairns Standard-Examiner staff bca...@standard.net Few among us can claim living through a ripped-from-the-tabloids moment. Jamie Bradley is one of those few, the survivor of startling "Man Attacked By Chimps" headlines that played out in Utah and across the nation a decade ago. For proof, look no farther than Bradley's face, still scarred where a chimpanzee tore away part of his nose and ripped open his forehead. Or to his left hand, missing one finger and mere halves remaining of two other fingers. Bradley survived the injuries, married and became a father, and now looks back on the 1999 attack with a mixture of emotion, matter-of-factness -- and even levity. "I always typed with two fingers anyway .<2009>.<2009>. it slowed down my typing at first," the former zoo worker quips during an interview at his Bountiful home. Bradley, who was 28 when the three chimpanzees escaped from their enclosure at Utah's Hogle Zoo, even threw a party to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the 1999 incident -- a banparty. Stuffed apes decorated the living room, and a Barrel of Monkeys game covered the top of a frosted cake. The invitations, too, were decorated with monkeys. "A little humor, that's me," says Bradley. There were tears and laughter as Bradley recounted his memories of the Feb. 27, 1999, event to friends and family packed shoulder-to-shoulder in his small apartment on the anniversary date. Some of those gathered added their own recollections of the incident. Told that his friend was hospitalized from injuries inflicted by chimpanzees, Gordon Bray first thought it was a joke -- a lame excuse for why Bradley was late to meet him that day. "It was one of those events that you don't ever imagine happening," says Bray, a Taylorsville resident who has known Bradley since third grade. Wild animals But the unimaginable happened that Saturday morning as Bradley, a volunteer and part-time worker at the zoo, helped a primate keeper clean the ape house. The chimpanzee enclosure was accidentally left unlocked by the keeper, and all three chimps got out, one male going after Bradley. The Clearfield High School graduate -- who dreamed at the time of becoming a zookeeper -- was bitten on his arms, legs, face and head before the animals were shot by keepers. He lost part of his left ear, his left nostril and one finger, and had torn eyelids and multiple puncture wounds. Yet today, even with a Connecticut chimp attack fresh in the news, Bradley seems to harbor no ill will toward the animals. "I can't really blame them for it because they're not human, they're wild animals," he says. "They're just doing what comes by instinct." The computer repairman says he thinks the two male chimps viewed him as a threat, an "intruding male" in their social structure. Chip, the chimp who attacked Bradley, and Happy, who charged one of the zookeepers, weren't killed by the gunshots and had to be euthanized. Bradley says their deaths made him sad. "When I woke up (after surgery), that was one of the first things I asked: How were the chimps? Did they kill them?" "You're such an animal lover," wife Charlene tells him. Grabbing headlines Bradley's injuries landed him in the University of Utah Hospital, where a nurse telephoned his mother and an older sister at their Centerville home with the news. Driving to the hospital, sister Jolene Bradley, now of Bountiful, says she remembers thinking, "I just hope he's still alive. All they said was he was mauled and we need to get there." Her brother went into surgery right away and was hospitalized for a month. Over the next two years, he went through more than 10 surgeries, many of them reconstructive, as well as physical therapy. Photos chronicling Bradley's wounds and his rehabilitation fill a scrapbook that also contains news clippings of the event and cards from well-wishers, among them complete strangers. One 6-year-old boy named Ethan sent Bradley three quarters and one dime "to pay for the doctor so you can feel better." Bradley sued the zoo to get money to cover his medical bills, which he says totaled more than $100,000. The amount of the 2001 settlement is confidential, he adds. A "private guy," as his wife describes him, Bradley hasn't talked much publicly about the attack, although it did get national attention in 1999. There were a few calls from TV shows like "Good Pets Gone Bad," but they lost interest once they learned there was no video footage of the event, he says. And, "I beat out President Clinton on the USA Today. President Clinton came out (to Utah) skiing; my story was above his," he says. Back to the zoo A decade after the attack, Bray says he doesn't think his friend -- who jokingly referred to himself as "chimp chow" for a time -- has changed much. "From an accident that brought him to the brink of his life, he's just as happy as ever," says Bray, who wanted to come to the anniversary party wearing a chimp or gorilla costume but couldn't find one. "We make light of it and I think it's one of the things that helped him through," he says. As recordings of TV news coverage of the attack were played at the party, Charlene joked to her husband, "I like the part about you being psychologically disturbed forever." Bradley says later that he did see some psychologists following the incident, but he didn't have any problems with long-lasting trauma. "He never holds any kind of resentment toward anything or anybody," says Bradley's sister Wendy Brimhall, of Bountiful. Several months after the attack, Bradley visited Hogle Zoo again to see a visiting Komodo dragon. He also walked through the ape building and says, "I was OK." "Zoos are very important. They help educate people and certainly entertain them," says Bradley, who looks forward to future zoo outings with his 20-month old son, Ryan. And, he says, if he tells them who he is at Hogle Zoo, he gets in free. Reinventing himself At the time of the attack, Bradley was also working part time at Salt Lake Community College and taking classes there in electronics and biology. He worked at the college again for a while once he recovered, but says he is now self-employed, doing information technology work for small companies. Both of Bradley's hands were damaged by the chimp; the right one had extensive tendon repairs, and the fingers don't quite straighten out. Although he has trouble lifting heavy objects or grabbing certain items, Bradley says he can generally do what he wants to do. "I usually just figure a way to work around it or another way to do things," he says. When he and Charlene married in June 2006, she slid his wedding ring on his right hand, since he has no ring finger on his left hand. "I think they found (the severed finger) and brought it to the hospital, but they couldn't reattach it," he says. Bradley's dreams of being a zookeeper seemed to die with the attack. Even though he says he'd still love to work with animals, he doesn't think he could work at the Salt Lake City zoo because of the lawsuit. But he enjoyed working with the apes and learning how to care for them, he says. One of his keepsakes is a crayon drawing created by the late Gorgeous the gorilla. The white paper with red scribbles is framed and hanging on a wall outside his kitchen. 'Houdini!' The only part of the attack Bradley doesn't remember is being pulled to the floor. The other details, he recalls vividly. "That's the first bite, right there," he says, pointing to a scar on his left forearm. At one point, Chip suddenly appeared in Bradley's face and took "one bite, from forehead to lip." The bleeding was so heavy, Bradley says, he couldn't see. After the facial assault, "I knew it would go for the neck next and I would die," Bradley says. Chimpanzees are much stronger than humans, he says. And, "They have both hands and feet to grab with." As he hollered and tried to fight the chimps off, Bradley says, keeper Kimberly Tropea tried to shield him and called for help on a radio with the code word "Houdini," which meant "escaped animal." Eventually came the gunshots, first for Happy, who had charged a keeper in another part of the building, and then for Chip, still attacking Bradley's legs. "(A keeper) shot it right over the top of me with a shotgun, right over the top of my head," he says. More than a year after the attack, a doctor removed a lump thought to be a cyst from Bradley's leg -- and found it to be a shotgun pellet. Praying for help Charlene says she and her husband met on a blind date. She was told he was the guy attacked by apes at the zoo, but she hadn't heard about the incident. "I wasn't quite sure how I'd hold his hand at first," she remembers. Although she didn't know Jamie before he was injured, Charlene says, "I do think he lives life more fully. .<2009>.<2009>. He just takes everything as it comes, real easy, and deals with things real well and has a wonderful attitude about life." At the anniversary party, Bradley started to cry when he recounted how he prayed during the attack. "The thought came to my mind, just the overwhelming feeling that I would be OK," he says. "That feeling has stayed with me ever since, through all the surgeries .<2009>.<2009>. that overwhnically, Bradley says, he recalls grabbing Chip's head once to pull the chimp off of him and realized his fingers were in the animal's eyes. "I remember thinking, 'Oh wait, I'm going to hurt it,' " he says with a laugh, but his next thought was, "That doesn't matter right now." No 'Why me?' Bradley says the incident was an accident. The keeper didn't mean to leave the door unlocked, he says, and even threw herself on him to protect him from the chimps. The zoo had good security measures at the time, he says, "and now they're extra good." How has the attack changed him? Always shy, Bradley says he thinks he's become more outgoing, takes more chances and tries to "just live more of life." As for wondering "Why me?" or "How did this happen?" Bradley says, "I guess I never had those questions." His focus, he says, was more on, "When can I get on with my life? When will the recovery be over?" Being angry or bitter, "That's not me." *** The following account of the Feb. 27, 1999, attack at Hogle Zoo is in Jamie Bradley's words I had been a volunteer or zoo aide at Utah's Hogle Zoo for about a year and a half. I started in the Desert Canyon area and six months later moved to the Great Ape building. In the time I had been at the zoo I also had various other part-time jobs at the zoo. Zoo aides do one four-hour shift every two weeks, working alongside the keeper in daily housekeeping and animal care. My volunteer shift was Saturday mornings at 8:00 a.m. On Saturday, February 27, I arrived at the zoo at 8:00 a.m. As usual I parked in the parking lot by the commissary and walked up to the ape building and walked through the public area hallway. I looked at the chimpanzees and Rufus the orangutan. I saw Kim, the new keeper, was cleaning Gorgeous' enclosure and waved to her. I continued through the building out and down the ramp to the lower back door. I went inside and up and met her at the enclosure door; she and I were the only ones there. She told me that Marge the other main keeper had resigned the previous day and was not going to be there. This was a surprise to me as Marge had worked there for fifteen years, and Kim had only been there for two weeks. This was the first time I had worked with Kim and only the third or fourth time I had met her. She set me to work cleaning the other upper gorilla area. A zoo aide's job is very glamorous, shovel and pick up animal feces, soiled hay, half-eaten food, prepare the food for the animals, and, of course, wash windows. After that she sent me to work in the outside gorilla yard, she said that if it got warm enough she was hoping to let the gorillas have access to the outside. So while she cleaned the lower gorilla area, I went outside to pick up garbage and rake leaves left from the winter, I was also supposed to wash the leaves out of the ponds, but the hose had been left outside overnight and had frozen. I tried to clear it but couldn't, so I left the hose to thaw lying in the sun that was just beginning to shine in the gorilla yard and returned inside. I started to prepare the diets for the animals. She wanted me to do a deep clean of the upper orangutan area. A deep clean was just as it sounds, remove all the hay and animal feces in the enclosure, sweep it up and wash and scrub the floors with disinfectant cleaner, then hose everything down. While I was cleaning the orangutan area, I looked through a connecting shift door into the chimpanzee area and saw that Kim was cleaning in there. That meant the chimpanzees would have been shifted to their lower area. I filled two garbage bags full of hay and dung and took them down the stairs. I then brought a hose from the hallway in through the doorway and washed out the enclosure. When I had finished this, I laid the hose down just inside the enclosure door as I still needed it later and went to get cleaning supplies, such as a bucket of disinfectant and a scrubbing broom. While I was filling the bucket, Kim came and said that she was going to check the windows and talk to someone in the public area and unlocked the door to the upper public hallway and went out. I returned to the enclosure and climbed up on the rear deck area of the enclosure and began scrubbing the floor with disinfectant. I noticed that the chimps were making noise in their main enclosure, which meant that they had been let back in to their main area. As I was passing over the shift chute, on the upper deck, I looked down to say hello to Rufus who was at the bottom of the chute, and saw him move away from the chute. It was then I heard a chimpanzee scream come from what sounded like an unusual part of the building, but at the time attributed it to strange acoustics in the building. As I continued to clean the area, Kim came back in from the hallway and into the enclosure and said to come with her. She tried to shut the door to the orangutan area but the hose was blocking it from completely closing. I asked her why, as I left my broom and bucket and jumped down off the upper deck. She said that she thought the chimps were out and that we needed to get out. The accident investigation later showed that most likely after she cleaned the enclosure, she closed and latched the door and let the chimps back into the enclosure, but she had forgotten to put the padlock back on the latch. After she came back upstairs, the chimps reached through the bars, undid the latch and opened the door. Kim stepped out of the enclosure through the door and began to go through the door to the public hallway. As I began to follow her, I looked toward the back hallway and saw a chimpanzee round the corner and it began to come toward me. I stepped back inside and tried to shut the door, but again the hose was blocking the door. The chimpanzee (Chip) jumped up onto the door and started to pull it open while I was trying my best to hold it closed; I gave one last hard pull, but I was no match for him. As soon as the door was partly open, the chimpanzee reached in and bit me on the left arm. The door then was pulled open and I was pulled out onto the landing. The next thing I remember was lying on the ground with the chimpanzee over me as he proceeded to attack. You have to realize this was not one of the cute baby chimps you see on TV. This was a 28-year-old, 5-foot-nothing, 180 lbs, fully grown chimpanzee at his prime. The strength of these animals is incredible, they used to hang and bounce against the 6-inch-thick layered glass/polycarbonate windows of their enclosure like they were going to break right through, all the while hanging on the head of a 1/2-inch bolt by their fingertips. I was told they had actually cracked one window the previous year. They nevertheless had no problem dragging my, at the time about 6-foot 260 lbs, across the square steel grate floor with not much effort at all. After the year of work there I had gotten fairly strong and fit. But I was no match for this chimp. The chimpanzee began biting me all over my body. It was a bite and tear type of attack. I do not recall exactly what was bitten when or what, but I was being bitten on the legs, arms and hands. I was laying on the landing just outside the orangutan door with my head just in front of the door to Gorgeous' enclosure. During this time Kim called for help on her radio. During the attack, I found myself lying on one side and then in the next instance laying on the other as my arm and legs were being pulled and bitten. I heard and felt Kim trying to get the chimp off me. I felt a pounding on my legs and realized that it was Kim pounding on a chimp that was on my legs. I don't remember seeing much as for some reason I kept my eyes shut. There was kind of a pause in the attack and I lifted up my head but then I felt and realized that the chimp was directly in front of my face and at that instant felt it bite into my face and heard the cartilage pop as it pulled away. I could feel and see the blood from my face come into my eyes and tasted the blood in my mouth. I felt the chimp move to my right side and from what I had learned of animal behavior and the way they attacked, the thought occurred to me that it would go for my throat next and if it did that, I would probably bleed to death or suffocate. It was then I heard a loud pop and the chimp seemed to stop its attack for a moment; it then moved down to my legs and began biting again but not as aggressively as before and only on my arms and legs. It never touched my face, neck or torso again. I learned later that the loud pop was the shot fired by the first zoo employee that made it to the building. He was able to get inside the lower service area, retrieve a shotgun from the case and make it halfway across the room before the other chimp (Happy) charged him and knocked him into a fence, he spun and shot point-blank as the chimp charged him again. A few moments later I found myself on my left side and a chimpanzee in front of me; I believe it was biting my left arm. My right hand fell onto what I quickly determined was its forehead, brow and eyes. I was going to gouge at the eyes with my fingers, but hesitated as in my mind I did not want to hurt the animal. I then realized that the need to get the animal off me was more important. I pulled back with all the strength I could muster, my fingers digging into its eyes. My hand was quickly grabbed away like it was nothing, and the chimps began pulling me by my left arm and the zoo T-shirt I was wearing. I was pulled up and around the bottom of the stairs, which led up from the landing, toward the back hallway. I found that I was lying next to and partially on top of Kim, still being pulled at by my arm and shirt. I realized that if I lifted my right arm my shirt would come off. I did so and it came off and the pulling stopped. I think it concentrated on the shirt for a moment. I then heard the voices of other people, coming down the back hallway, and realized that the other keepers had arrived. One of the voices I recognized as the main relief keeper for the great ape building. He was yelling commands at the chimp. Kim saw them also and screamed "shoot it." The chimp that had been pulling on me then jumped over the top of me from the back hallway to the door area where my legs were. The keepers came closer to us; I heard at least two keepers and realized they probably had the shotguns that I knew were placed at various points around the zoo. He yelled some more commands at the chimp, but it did not respond to any of his commands. Kim then told me to get down and pulled me down flat on the floor next to her. I then heard and felt the concussion from the shotgun as the keeper, standing directly over my head, fired over the top of us toward the chimp that was on my legs at the time. I heard the chimp scream and it went in to the orangutan enclosure that I had been cleaning. The keeper climbed over us and pulled the hose out of the door and closed and locked the door. I then started to sit up and I moved myself with Kim's help back over and off of her to where I had been laying with my head next to Gorgeous' enclosure door. I could hear the keepers elsewhere in the building trying to find the other chimps. I sat up slightly and began to assess my wounds. Although I could only see a little through the blood in my eyes, I could tell that at least one finger on my left hand had been torn off, but I thought I saw it still hanging on by some skin or tissue. I felt my face with my right hand and could tell that it had been torn severely; I could feel part of my upper lip hanging down in to my mouth. I started to feel some slight pain in my right leg and realized I could not move it very much. Kim moved over next to me and made me lay down. I then heard the outer door to the public hallway open and other keepers outside in the hallway. A keeper then came in, opened the inner door and said to try to get me out, and began to try to lift my shoulders and head up and over toward the exit door. I tried to help the best I could by pushing with my left leg and arching my back. Someone else then got my feet and they got me as far as my head and shoulders to the first doorway. Two more keepers arrived and along with the other two lifted me out through the other door into the public hallway and placed me on the floor. There were other keepers in the hallway and I recognized some of their voices. Some began to help with first aid on some of my wounds. The keepers doing first aid put my hand up on my chest and began to try to undo my pants to get access to my legs, but they were having difficulty with the belt. I told them to cut them off and a few seconds later I felt the pants legs being cut open. Someone was next to my head and began to place packing on my face; I asked him how much I was bleeding and he said not very much. I heard someone else talking on the radio telling them to let the paramedics in. I asked the person to get them here quickly. They continued to do first aid until the paramedics came in and took over. The paramedics came in and began to assess my injuries. They put a neck collar on and laid a backboard next to me and told me that they were going to roll me to one side. I asked which side and began to roll to the side they had said in order to help. They then moved the backboard under me and rolled me back onto it. They then lifted me onto the stretcher and rolled me out and into the ambulance. In the ambulance I guess the adrenaline started to wear off because I started to feel pain. I said that I was starting to hurt and they gave me some morphine. They took me to the University Hospital since it was the closest hospital. When we got to the hospital it was around 10 a.m. I was taken to the emergency room where the doctors looked over my wounds; a nurse asked me if there was anyone I wanted her to contact. I told her to call my mother and gave the number. The doctor told me of the extent of my injuries. One finger had been pulled off, severe damage to the other fingers on both hands, my lip, eyelids and ear were torn, and the left side of my nose had been torn away, as well as many bites on my legs and arms. They were also worried that my neck might have injuries due to the injuries on my head. They asked me if I remember falling down hard, I told them no. They then sent me to have a CAT scan of my neck just in case. After what seemed like about 30 minutes being left alone in the CAT machine, I was told I was being taken to surgery; they paused in the hallway where my mother, sister Jolene and brother Randy were there to see me. I forced open my eyes and could see them a little. They asked me how I was, I told them a little about what had happened. Then they came and took me to surgery. With the skills and talent of some great surgeons, they were able to rebuild my right hand and patch most other wounds. They tried their best on my left hand, but the damage was too severe. When I woke up I was told that it was around 9 p.m. and that I had been in surgery for about 10 hours. I stayed awake for a little while, then fell back asleep and didn't wake up till the next day. I spent four weeks in the hospital with three more surgeries where they had to remove the tips of two fingers on my left hand because of infection and lack of blood flow. And over the next two years I had about seven additional facial and hand reconstructive surgeries and physical therapy. Some post notes: About a year after, one of the minor scars on my leg that always had a lump in it had begun to itch and bother me. During my last facial reconstruction surgeries, my plastic surgeon was nice enough to check my leg for me. He discovered that one of the 12-gauge shotgun pellets had hit my leg and was embedded under the layer of skin. I also realize now that in keeping my eyes closed, it helped to protect my eyes and only my eyelids were torn and I only received minor scratches to my eyes that healed in about two days, even though I could not open them because of the swelling for two weeks.