Posted:2008-11-11|Source:internet|No. of Views:
A Victorian high school student has been evacuated to Melbourne from a school trip to China after a panda bit her.
The girl, 15, a student at St Leonard's College in Brighton, suffered minor lacerations on her hand when she tried to pat the panda at an animal sanctuary in Xian, central China, on Friday. After consulting doctors in Melbourne, her parents decided to bring her home.
"The student is in hospital recovering from treatment, she has some minor lacerations, no nerve, tendon or bone damage,'' St Leonard's principal Roger Hayward said.
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Sources have told The Age that, while sanctuary staff warned some teachers and students not to come too close to the pandas, the girl's group received no warning.
During their two-day visit, students helped staff at the Shaanxi Panda Centre, mostly with cleaning and weeding, but a blog by trip participants details just how close students got to the endangered animals.
"We actually got to feed the pandas instead of cleaning up after them!," the blog reads.
"The pandas seemed to enjoy their food which consisted of bamboo, carrots and panda cake. Most of us were able to scratch a baby panda¡¯s back!"
However, the blog makes no mention of a student bitten by a panda.
Dr Hayward said the student was bitten soon after the group arrived at the centre.
"The group does some volunteer work there and they had just arrived there and they were waiting for their guide and instructions and one of the students patted a panda and got a nip on her hand,'' Dr Hayward said.
"So we decided to take a very conservative approach to this and we've got a detailed risk management plan and contacted parents and said they're about to head off into a fairly remote area and do they want hospital treatment there or here and we all decided it would be prudent to bring her back to make sure there was no damage to nerves or tendons.
"She was obviously a little bit concerned about it and her father was a little concerned about it and she flew back on her own rather than with her mates.''
Dr Hayward said the 15-year-old student would remain in hospital until the the swelling from the bite went down.
"It looked like it was just four small flesh wounds, so she was seen and her hand is slightly swollen and she's staying in hospital until the swelling goes down and I'm told there's no infection and there will be a couple of sutures put in and she will be released,'' he said.
"The group arrives back in a few days and we'll find out a little bit more detail then.''
with REKO RENNIE
