Witnesses have described the horrifying moment a Siberian tiger attacked a young female zookeeper in Russia.

The male, named Typhoon, jumped on the keeper at Kaliningrad Zoo after its cage was accidentally left open while she brought the animal food.

Her life was only saved when shocked visitors shouted and threw stones and chairs at the beast until it backed away, reports the Daily Mail.

The unnamed victim, from Kaliningrad, was badly mauled and left covered in blood but was rushed to hospital and is expected to survive.

One witness at the zoo, named Vera, described the chilling moment the zookeeper’s screams rang around the enclosure.

She said, ‘We heard screams, and the cries went on for a long time, for ten minutes or so. Then they subsided, before starting again.’

She confessed’ ‘I couldn’t show this to my child.’

Among the crowd at the zoo there were rumours that the tiger ‘almost tore off the scalp of the woman’.

Another witness called Natalia said she was ‘in shock’ .

She said, ‘My daughter and I went to the zoo and immediately to the cage where the tiger lives, but the sight was terrible.

‘There were shouts, everyone tried to chase away the tiger. When we got there, the woman was already bitten, (and) all covered in blood.

‘The tiger didn’t move away. It was biting, even a feeling that it gnawed like meat. People threw stones at him, all they could.’

‘It looked like ‘to no avail’.

The witness said, ‘We were very frightened and left.’

Vera added: ‘The doctors arrived quickly. The girl was in the basement in front of the enclosure. Doctors went down there and within five minutes she was carried out in a blanket and loaded onto a stretcher.

‘She was conscious. She lay on stretchers with her knees bent.’ 

Alarming pictures show the woman on her back on the ground with the tiger on top of her, seemingly about to go in for the kill.

But at this point, the zoo visitors distracted the big cat, which has never previously attacked a keeper.

The commotion alerted other visitors who ran to join the hero onlookers saving the woman who was able to run to a secure part of the compound.

Other zoo employees were not present at the moment of the surprise attack, and it was down to the Russian visitors to save the keeper.

The Siberian tiger - the largest cat in the world - was supposed to be contained in another part of its compound when the woman brought its food.

But there was clearly a problem and the cat - described as ‘elderly’ - was able to attack. 

It was even visitors who called an ambulance. 

The tiger was reported to be ‘stressed’ after the attack and will not be destroyed despite tasting human blood, said Russian zoo officials.

Contrary to earlier reports, the big cat was not sedated after almost killing the keeper, as eyewitnesses had claimed.

‘The animal, which also suffered a lot of stress, is in its enclosure,’ said a zoo statement.

‘No measures will be taken against him.’

The predator is not being blamed for its attack on the keeper.

A spokesman for the zoo said: ‘This is the first time in the history of the zoo that a tiger attacked a man. An official investigation was launched to find out the reasons for the tragedy in the zoo.’

This involves both police and prosecutors.

A spokesman said: ‘The Siberian tiger is a territorial animal. Protecting its territory is its natural instinct.

‘This animal acted in full accordance with its instinct. It was not aggression. It was the defence of its territory.’ 

The Siberian tiger was born on 1 July 2001 in Chelyabinsk Zoo and was later moved to Kaliningrad Zoo. He turned 16 this year.

In the wild such tigers - a critically endangered species - have a life expectancy of 15 years.