Jan 5, 2008 1:00 pm US/Pacific
SF Zoo Attack Survivors Made A Pact Of Silence
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
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San Francisco Zoo tiger attack victims leaving San Francisco General Hospital.
CBS
Soon after 17-year-old friend Carlos Sousa, Jr. was mauled to death by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo, the two brothers who survived made a pact not to cooperate with the police the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.
Ambulance paramedics overheard 23-year-old Kulbir Dhaliwal tell his younger brother, "Don't tell them what we did."
The Chronicle also reported that the younger brother, 19-year-old Paul Dhaliwal was intoxicated at the time of the incident. He had smoked marijuana and consumed enough liquor to have a blood-alcohol level above the .08 limit for adult drivers. The older brother also had been drinking and smoking marijuana around the time the 350-pound Siberian tiger escaped and killed Sousa Jr.
Meanwhile, attendance is up at the San Francisco Zoo in the aftermath of the fatal tiger attack.
A zoo spokesman said there were twice as many visitors when the zoo reopened Thursday as on the same day last year.
Spokesman Paul Garcia said most of the 782 visitors to the zoo arrived before 2 p.m., when heavy rains began falling over the city.
The zoo had just under 400 visitors on Jan. 3, 2007, Garcia said.
The zoo was closed for eight days following the Christmas Day attack.
A day after reopening, severe storms over Northern California forced the zoo to close again Friday as high winds brought down tree branches and knocked out power at the facility. No animals were hurt in the storm.
According to zoo spokesman Paul Garcia, the zoo lost power Friday morning in an outage affecting parts of the Sunset District.
Despite the weather, work continued on a 3-foot fence being erected around the zoo's polar bear exhibit after zoo officials said they determined the existing barrier was too low.
The zoo opened late Saturday at noon, after staff members cleared debris and assessed any potential risks from dangling branches. Saturday operating hours are normally 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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