Number 8 Sergey Grigoriyev Russian hunter Sergey Grigoriyev had raised
a brown bear, named Vorchun or Grumbler, since it was a cub at the suburban plot of land he owned in
Ozersk, Chelyabinsk region. Many of those who knew 41-year-old Grigoriyev had reportedly told him how
dangerous and irresponsible it was to treat the dangerous predator as if it were his pet. Friends
and family pleaded with the hunter to get rid of Vorchun, after the bear had attacked him in the
past, but the hunter wouldn’t give him up. Then, in December of 2018, relatives went to check up
on Grigoriyev after he’d been out of contact for a prolonged period of time. He’d last shared tea
with a neighbor who subsequently hadn’t seen or heard from him anymore. The hunter’s relatives
went to his property and found the bear wandering freely around the plot and behaving aggressively.
A dog that was with the family attacked it, giving them enough time to escape in their car. Vorchun
killed the dog within seconds. The authorities were called to the scene, and, upon their arrival,
fatally shot the bear. Upon examining the surroundings, they discovered that Vorchun’s
cage door was open and determined that he had escaped. They found the remains of a dog owned
by Grigoriyev which had been killed and eaten by the animal. The authorities eventually came upon
the skeletal remains of the hunter himself, who’d been gnawed to the bone by Vorchun.
Number 7 Aril
An Indonesian teenager, only identified as Aril, took out his pet king cobra pet in an attempt to
take photos with it and post them to his social media, in December of 2017. Reports from those who
knew Aril suggested that he’d engaged in similarly irresponsible behavior with the snake in the past,
even though it hadn’t been defanged and was fully capable of delivering its highly potent venom.
On December the 11th, a photo that Aril had uploaded to WhatsApp, at 9:50 local time,
was captioned “why not smile a little”. It showed the cobra with its hood spread, indicating it was
about to strike. Less than five minutes later, Aril posted a second photo showing his bloody
forearm, after the exotic pet had bitten him, and described it as “between life and death”.
The teenager tied a shoelace around his forearm to prevent the venom from spreading to the rest of
his body and pleaded with his friends to take him to the hospital. Aril was eventually rushed to the
emergency room but treatment failed in preventing his condition from further deteriorating and he
was pronounced dead that same day. Number 6 Justin Minor
In March of 2022, South Carolina woman Kayleen Waltman suffered devastating injuries after she
was attacked by three dogs in Abbeville County. The 38-year-old had been walking home from her
boyfriend’s house in Honea Path, roughly 80 miles from Columbia. Two pit bulls and a German Shepherd
charged the woman and began mauling her. They bit her on the head with such force that the skin was
torn off, exposing her skull. They ripped all the flesh from her arms along with chunks from other
body parts. Local farmer Avery Presley, whom had reportedly fended off the same dogs weeks earlier,
intervened as Waltman, who’d become unconscious, was being “eaten alive” by them. Presley fired
a gun into the air, scaring away two of the animals, and then kicked the remaining one,
effectively putting an end to the attack. In the aftermath, according to Waltman’s sister,
her organs started shutting down and she “died three times- in the ambulance, helicopter and
on the operating table” but ultimately survived the attack. The mauling had miraculously left her
without brain damage but did result in Waltman losing her arms as well as her colon and voice
box. Her life-changing injuries required over a dozen surgeries, including skin grafts and close
to 200 hundred staples on her head. According to updates from early May of 2022, a GoFundMe
in Waltman’s name had raised approximately $240,000 of its $300,000 goal. The dogs’ owner,
36-year-old Justin Minor, had allegedly once claimed that they’d gotten a taste for blood
after slaughtering his chickens. In April, the man was released on a $15,000 bond as his case
would be sent to a grand jury. Waltman’s sister described dog attacks laws in South Carolina as
being very lenient. For not properly securing his dangerous pets, Minor faced a penalty of
$5,000 or a sentence of three years in prison. Number 5 Shirley Farms
Law enforcement in Obion County, Tennessee, responded to a call about a rampaging camel,
in March of 2022. When deputies arrived at Shirley Farms, in Obion, they found two unconscious men,
subsequently identified as 42-year-old Bobby Matheny and Tommy Gunn, aged 67. Law
enforcement immediately tried to provide aid to the victims and move them out of the camel’s path.
As they were in the process of transferring one of the men to the emergency medical services,
the camel charged an Obion County Sheriff's Office vehicle. Deputies then decided to put it down,
as they deemed it presented a threat to everyone at the scene. In spite of paramedics’ attempts
to revive them, Matheny and Gunn succumbed to their injuries. The authorities launched an
investigation to determine the circumstances under which the attack had occurred and to determine the
extent of their owners’ culpability. According to News Channel 5 Nashville, Matheny and Gunn had
been assisting in recapturing the camel, after it had escaped its pen, but were cornered by it and
fatally stomped to the ground. The petting zoo to which the animal belonged had previously been
cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for various safety concerns. A 2018 report found that
there were no barriers separating the animals, which included camels, llamas, kangaroos, alpacas
and a zebra, from members of the public. Visitors were also reportedly feeding and interacting with
the animals only in the presence of a cashier who didn’t have a direct line of sight to them.
In 2019, the USDA found that the only source of water that the animals had was a shallow muddy
creek that traversed their enclosure. Number 4 Brandy Dowdy
Alabama public health employee Jacqueline Summer Beard, aged 58, was investigating a dog attack
at a home along Route 11, in April of 2022. Subsequent reports indicated that Beard was
in the process of contacting the owner when she was attacked by a pack consisting of the exact
same dogs she’d been sent to investigate. The incident initially went unnoticed and
the authorities were called to the area following reports of a suspicious vehicle on Crumpton Road,
outside of Red Bay. According to a Facebook post by the Franklin County Sheriff's Office,
other residents were attacked by the dogs and one of them suffered minor injuries after deputies had
already arrived at the scene. The post revealed that some of the aggressive pets had to be put
down immediately. Then, as law enforcement began investigating the suspicious vehicle,
they came upon Beard’s body and it was evident that she’d been mauled to death. The dogs’ owner,
39-year-old Brandy Lee Dowdy was taken into custody and charged with manslaughter. The
authorities reported that the victim of the attack that Beard had initially been sent to
investigate was still hospitalized in Mississippi at the time of the public health employee’s death.
Number 3 Sadie Totterdell In June of 2020, two women received
a combined jail sentence of five years following a fatal dog attack at the Tencreek Holiday Park
in Cornwall, England. The previous April, Sadie Totterdell and Tawnee Willis, both aged
28 at the time, were spending time together at the caravan park’s social club. The latter’s son,
Frankie, was left alone with Totterdell’s dog, Winston, in an adjacent caravan.
In spite of the fact that the pet had been responsible for several attacks in the past,
both women had deemed that Frankie would be safe in its company. In the early hours of the morning
others in the park awoke to Willis screaming “the dog’s attacked my boy”. Frankie was found
unresponsive after Winston had viciously mauled him. The boy ultimately succumbed to blood loss
and paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. A post-mortem examination revealed that he’d
suffered at least 54 injuries during the attack. In the ensuing legal proceedings, Totterdell
was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to being the owner of a dog dangerously out of
control and she was banned from owning or controlling a canine for 10 years. Frankie’s
mother pleaded guilty to neglecting a young person and was given a two-year prison sentence.
Number 2 Tracie Taylor British woman Laura Holmes and her friend Tracie
Taylor were at the latter’s Nottingham home, in May of 2014. At some point during their meet up,
Holmes, then in her early 20s and 7-months pregnant, went upstairs while in the middle of
replying to a text message. She was then charged by Taylor’s dog, a nine-year-old American Akita
named Koda, who brought her to the ground. Holmes struggled to free herself from the dog’s jaws as
he clamped on her arm and then her leg. Before she eventually managed to get to a bathroom,
Koda bit deep into her face, tearing off chunks of flesh from her mouth and cheek.
She was rushed to the hospital, where surgeons battled to save her face and baby. The child was
born unaffected by the incident, but Holmes needed 60 stitches to mend her facial lacerations and was
left scarred for life. Taylor surrendered Koda to the authorities in the immediate aftermath
and the dog was put down. A day before the May 13th attack, new laws had taken effect according
to which dog owners could be taken to court for failure to control their dangerous pets.
Taylor received a 16-week jail sentence suspended for a year and was ordered to pay Holmes
a little over $1,200 in compensation. The latter appeared on Good Morning Britain,
along with her baby, to talk about her ordeal and she expressed an intention of suing Taylor.
Number 1 Kim Carlton In May of 2007, Tanya Dumstrey-Soos
was at a farm owned by her fiancé, Kim Carlton, in British Columbia, Canada. The facility, called
Siberian Magic, housed exotic animals that included tigers, a lion and a lemur. Carlton
reportedly put on exotic and magic shows, charging a fee for visitors who wanted their photos taken
with the big cats, who were described as his pets. The man wasn’t present at the farm when
Tanya Dumstrey-Soos went to the tiger enclosure accompanied by her preteen daughter and teenage
son. She then petted a tiger named Gangus good night, as she was known to routinely
do. Gangus reportedly started playing with Tanya Dumstrey-Soos’ dress and swiped at it but hit
her legs. He was the only tiger at the farm not have been declawed and the paw strike severed
an artery in the woman’s leg. In the aftermath, as she was rapidly losing blood, Dumstrey-Soos
called Carlton on his cell phone and the two were able to say that they loved each other.
Paramedics arrived at the farm and rushed her to a hospital but the woman couldn’t be revived. An
investigator for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals subsequently described
Carlton’s farm as a "public safety catastrophe." The incident set into motion legislation that made
it illegal to own certain exotic animals without a permit. In an ironic twist,
Carlton became the first person to be convicted on the new legislation three years later,
when he was fined $500 for lion cub possession. As reported by CTV News, the authorities were baffled
that he’d continued owning dangerous exotic animals, considering his fiancée’s tragic death.
Thanks for watching! Given enough prep time, would you rather try domesticating a tiger
OR living with a wolf pack? Let us know in the comments section below!