(CNN) A zookeeper is recovering in the hospital after she was attacked Saturday morning by a tiger at the Topeka, Kansas, zoo. The woman and a 7-year-old male Sumatran tiger named Sanjiv were both in the tiger habitat shortly after the zoo opened when the tiger "essentially tackled our keeper," Zoo Director Brendan Wiley said at an afternoon press conference. The zookeeper suffered "lacerations and punctures to the back of the head, neck, back and one arm," Wiley told reporters. A spokeswoman for the City of Topeka previously told CNN that woman was "awake and alert" at the time she was taken to the hospital. The zookeeper is the facility's primary tiger keeper, Wiley said, and has been working in that space for years.

Source: CNN April 20, 2019 17:26 UTC