Video: Girl Falls Into Panda Enclosure, Pandas Couldn't Care Less

On Saturday, park guides scrambled to rescue a young girl who fell six and a half feet from a fence into a giant panda enclosure in China's Sichuan province, South China Morning Post reported.

Luckily for the eight-year-old, the five pandas in the enclosure at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding didn't seem all that interested in the visitor.

The girl was filmed grappling a long, bamboo stick held out by a park guide named as Liu Guihua by Communist Party newspaper China Daily. But the girl fails to get a good enough hold on the stick for Liu to haul her up. A large crowd of onlookers watch the events unfold as an apparently mildly curious panda wanders towards the young child.

By the time a second panda has made its way towards the ditch, Liu is seen giving up on the pole, instead stretching his arm down further from the fenced area. He leans towards the girl and grabs hold of her hand, knocking his hat off in the process. Liu then pulls the girl out of the enclosure with one hand, just as a third panda ambles over.

Although the pandas in the video seem relatively calm, park photographer Zhou Mengqi, 66, warned the animals aren't as passive as they might look. He told China Daily that a Chengdu base panda once charged at him and scratched at his trousers when he was taking a picture in the early 1990s.

It's not clear exactly how the girl fell into the enclosure, which is surrounded by a tall, fence-topped wall. The Post quotes park officials who told Communist Party published-Beijing Youth Daily the girl must have climbed over the fence herself.

But The Post argues the fence appears to stand only around three feet tall from the viewing area, and features large enough gaps for a small child to fall through.

Liu said the girl was reunited with her parents before being examined at the park's clinic and assessed again at a hospital.

Earlier this year, a toddler hurt her face when she stumbled into a rhino enclosure at Florida's Brevard Zoo. The small child fell through the posts of a metal fence during a New Year's Day "rhino encounter" event.

Witnesses said at least one rhino touched the girl with its snout before she was rescued. The child and her mother were later treated at a local hospital.

Giant Panda, Enclosure
Giants pandas eat bamboo in an enclosure at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on June 30, 2015 in Chengdu, China. John Moore/Getty Images

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Katherine Hignett is a reporter based in London. She currently covers current affairs, health and science. Prior to joining Newsweek ... Read more

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