Chimpanzee attack leaves man in intensive care in South Africa

Chimpanzees sit in an enclosure at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden near Nelspruit, South Africa. Photograph: Erin Conway-Smith/AP

Chimpanzees at an animal sanctuary in South Africa have left an American researcher in critical condition, after bitting him severely and dragging him nearly half a mile (0.8km).

The man was giving a lecture at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee Eden on Thursday when two chimpanzees grabbed his feet and pulled him into their enclosure, said emergency worker Jeffrey Wicks.

He was in intensive care on Friday after undergoing surgery at the Mediclinic hospital in Nelspruit, 180 miles (290km) from Johannesburg, hospital officials said.

The man has "multiple and severe bite wounds", Wicks said.

Edwin Jay, chairman of the Jane Goodall Institute South Africa, said the two chimpanzees involved were part of a group that had been rescued from Angola and brought to South Africa more than a decade ago. He said sanctuary officials were investigating the attack.

The man lost part of an ear and parts of his fingers in the attack, according to the South African newspaper Beeld. It said reported that the sanctuary's director fired into the air to scare the chimps away, then chased them away.

In the United States, a Connecticut woman, Charla Nash, was attacked in 2009 by a friend's chimpanzee that ripped off her nose, lips, eyelids and hands before being killed by police. The woman was blinded and has had a face transplant. Lawyers for Nash filed papers this week accusing state officials of failing to seize the animal before the mauling despite a warning from a staff member that it was dangerous.