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Canadian teen Lauren Fagen suffers ‘huge rips’ in her body after trying to KISS a lion

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A Canadian teen got a little too close for  comfort to a lion she was helping care for in a South African rehabilitation  facility when the beast tried to drag her into its cage by the  legs.

Lauren Fagen, 18, was volunteering at the  Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre when she leaned in to kiss the beast’s  fur.

The Montreal girl was then pulled into the  animal’s cage, her legs gnawed and gashed by the lion and its mate, before she  was finally dragged away by a lifesaving fellow volunteer.

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Worth it: Lauren Fagen plays with some lion cubs at  Moholoholo Wildlife Centre in South Africa where she was later badly mauled.  Before the attack, she wrote on Facebook that the hard work at the refuge was  worth it

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A-OK: Lauren Fagen was kissing the fur of a 5-year-old  lion she was volunteering with in South Africa and it badly mauled her  legs

It began as a dream. Fagen was all set to  attend McGill University in the fall and wanted to indulge a lifelong passion  for animals.

She travelled to the Limpopo province of  South Africa to work with the animals at Moholoholo, a center established in  1991 for the rehabilitation of wild African animals like rhinos and honey  badgers.

They give a home to injured and poisoned  animals that can no longer live in the wild.

Fagen’s job was to clean cages. Only trained  professionals are allowed to feed the lions.

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¿I didn¿t realize he could stick his paws through’:  Fagen thought she was safe behind the fence of the lion cage

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Savage: Fagen suffered 10 gash wounds once fellow  students pulled her from the animals’ grip. She is now recovering from ‘huge  rips’ in her flesh

 

But Fagen wasn’t feeding 5-year-old Duma, a  male, when the attack occurred. She was leaning in to kiss its fur, reports the  Canadian Globe and Mail.

‘I didn’t realize he could stick his paws  through,’ Fagen said of the powerful feline.

The lion grabbed her and dragged her legs  into the cage, where it began tearing at them

Its mate joined in, as well, by pouncing on  the girl’s feet.

‘I should have died or lost a leg. It was a  miracle that I survived,’ she said.

Fagen said the big cat was being ‘very, very  friendly’ before the attack hinting she may have been lulled into a false sense  of safety.

And she told ABC  News via Skype from a Pretoria hospital that she still thinks the lion meant  no real harm to her.

Hearing her screams, some fellow volunteers  came running.

One of them, a veterinary nurse from Britain,  managed to beat the the lion and lioness off of Fagen with a broom.

‘Both her knees were injured and she had  puncture wounds in the calf and huge gouges out of her thigh,’ said 24-year-old  lifesaver Natalie Bennett.

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Lifesaver: 24-year-old British nurse Natalie Bennett  (pictured) beat the lions off with a broom before administering first aid to the  ailing Canadian teen

‘She’ll have some scarring on her legs, but  there won’t be any permanent damage,’ a manager of the wildlife centre, Marisa  Reinach, told the Globe and Mail.

There isn’t any permanent damage to Fagen’s  love of animals, either.

She said she signed a waiver when she arrived  at the center and knew the risks.

It was the first attack at the 20-year-old  center and, according to Moholoholo founder Brian Jones, things could have been  much worse.

‘This is quite mild – it’s a miracle it  wasn’t worse,’ he said. ‘She came here telling people that she wanted to hug an  animal.’



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