Zoo keeper goes home from Tampa General

TAMPA -- A Busch Gardens zoo keeper whose right arm was severed last Sunday by a lion was released Saturday from Tampa General Hospital.

Amanda Bourassa, 21, is "feeling fantastic," a hospital press release said.

Bourassa, a former Miss Land O'Lakes, was giving an approved, behind-the-scenes tour of the zoo when she mistakenly wrapped her fingers around the Max the lion's cage bars. Max, 364-pound feline, bit down on her fingers before severing her arm at the elbow in front of her mother, father, boyfriend and boyfriend's parents.

The family declined interviews, the press release said. Bourassa plans on talking about the incident as early as this week, according to the release.

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