The parents of a toddler have been charged after he was allegedly left unsupervised and stuck his hand into a wolf enclosure at a zoo in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
The incident happened on Saturday when the parents were allegedly looking at their cellphones instead of watching the child, Fox 5 reported Monday.
When the child crawled under an exterior perimeter fence at the Zoo America North American Wildlife Park, he made it to the primary metal enclosure surrounding the wolf habitat and put his hand through the fence, according to CBS News.
A wolf “instinctively” grabbed the toddler’s hand with its mouth, and bystanders rushed over to get the child away from the fence to safety.
When speaking about the wolf grabbing the child’s hand, a spokesperson for Hershey Entertainment and Resorts told CBS, “This type of response is consistent with natural animal behavior, and was not a sign of aggression. The child was never inside the wolf’s enclosure, and we are relieved the injuries were minor.”
Video footage shows the wolves in their enclosure:
“The child’s parents, identified as 43-year-old Carrie B. Sortor and 61-year-old Stephen J. B. Wilson, have been charged with endangering the welfare of children,” the Fox article read. “Police say they both walked away from their child to a seating area about 25–30 feet away, and appeared to be paying attention to their cellphones when they noticed commotion near the enclosure.”
Cellphones can be dangerous when users are not paying attention to their surroundings and looking at their screens.
The National Safety Council in 2015 added distracted walking to its report about unintentional deaths and injuries, Breitbart News reported at the time.
“Perhaps one of the most pointed examples of this danger is the brief story of Sheridan, Indiana’s Joshua Burwell. In hopes of photographing one of the famous sunsets from Sunset Cliffs during his visit to Southern California, Burwell became so preoccupied with taking the picture that he fell more than forty feet to his death,” the outlet said.
In addition, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said distracted driving cost 3,208 lives in 2024.
“Texting is the most alarming distraction. Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds. At 55 mph, that’s like driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed,” the agency explained, adding, “Using a cell phone while driving creates enormous potential for deaths and injuries on U.S. roads.”
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