It’s surprising how many stories there are of kids falling into gorilla cages. There are some that end poorly, and then there are others with endings you wouldn’t expect.
On August 30, 1986, Levan Merritt, who was 5 at the time, was visiting the Jersey Zoo in England when the unthinkable happened. Levan climbed up on the wall with the help of his dad to get a better view. Unfortunately, he leaned too far over and slipped and fell into the gorilla enclosure. He was knocked unconscious. The fall caused him to fracture his skull and an arm.
Of course, out of curiosity, the gorillas went over to Levan to investigate. A 450-pound silverback gorilla named Jambo approached him. Zoogoers watched helplessly, not knowing what the gorilla was going to do to Levan. To the onlookers’ surprise, Jambo started stroking the little boy’s back as he lay there motionless, while standing guard and shooing the other gorillas away.
Once Levan started to wake up, everyone shouted at him to not move and to stay quiet. When Levan realized he was surrounded by gorillas, he quickly returned to his original position and started to cry. Levan’s crying scared away all the gorillas, allowing rescuers to get him out of the enclosure.
A similar situation happened 10 years later at a zoo in Illinois. A 3-year-old boy fell into a gorilla enclosure, also getting knocked unconscious. A gorilla named Binti saw what happened and approached the boy. She swooped him up and cuddled him in her arms.
After several minutes passed of taking care of the little boy, Binti carried him over to the door she knew the zookeepers came in and out of. Binti left the child there for the zookeepers to remove him from the enclosure.
Sadly, in 2016 this was not the outcome for another child who fell into a gorilla enclosure. This incident occurred with the gorilla Harambe. In this case, though, the little boy who fell was not knocked out. He was fully awake and screaming. The sudden change in Harambe’s habitat caused the gorilla to act aggressively.
