MADISON COUNTY, Ala. (WHDH) — A 9-year-old girl is recovering after being bitten on the head by a kangaroo while visiting Harmony Park Safari in Madison County, Alabama. The incident was caught on camera.
“You blame yourself sometimes, like, ‘Why did I take her to the park that day? Why did I take her to see the kangaroo,” Cheyenne White’s mother Jennifer said.
“I’m just glad it got me instead of my baby sister because it would have hurt her even worse,” Cheyenne said.
Cheyenne and her 3-year-old sister were in for a surprise Saturday when their mom drove them to one of the girls favorite places.
“I was like, ‘Yay! We’re at the safari zoo,” Cheyenne said.
Harmony Park Safari, in the Owens Cross Roads area, is a place where the family has been to many times before, but they had never seen the kangaroos.
“I was really cute because she would walk one and it would follow her,” Jennifer said.
“I thought it was playing,” Cheyenne said.
Jennifer White took cell phone video of her daughters, up close to the kangaroo, as the younger one reaches through the fence.
The video shows the kangaroo reaching its head and arms through the fence, grabbing Cheyenne by her hair. The animal appears to bite her head. Her mother says her little girl now has fourteen stitches.
“I’m just glad I was there,” Jennifer said.
Harmony Park Safari employees said the owners do not want to comment. At the entrance to the kangaroo trail, there are signs posted showing a state law as a warning to customers that they take their own risks when visiting. There are two plaques on the fence that say “I Bite.”
Jennifer says if the park had a better barrier preventing contact with animals, or fencing that wouldn’t allow it, her daughter won’t have been bitten.
“I don’t want it to happen to someone else’s kid because they may not be as fortunate as my daughter was,” Jennifer said.
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