A Gorilla Cradled a Boy Who Fell Into Her Enclosure. Her Own Baby Was on Her Back.

On August 16, 1996, a 3-year-old boy climbed the barrier wall of the gorilla enclosure at Brookfield Zoo in Illinois and fell nearly 24 feet to the concrete below. He landed unconscious, with a broken hand and cuts to his face.

Seven gorillas were in the enclosure. The crowd above screamed.

Binti Jua

An 8-year-old western lowland gorilla named Binti Jua approached the boy. Her 17-month-old daughter Koola was clinging to her back.

Binti Jua picked up the unconscious child, cradled him gently — "just like it was her own," paramedic Jeff Bruno later said — and carried him across the enclosure to the door where keepers were waiting.

She laid him down near the entrance. Keepers used a hose to keep the other gorillas at bay while paramedics retrieved the boy.

Recovery

The boy spent four days at Loyola University Medical Center. He made a full recovery. By the time of the 20th anniversary retrospective in 2016, CBS Chicago reported he was "in his early twenties."

The Debate

Experts debated whether Binti Jua's behavior was genuine empathy or the result of her upbringing. She had been hand-raised by humans after her own mother failed to bond with her, and zoo staff had trained her to bring objects to keepers. Some argued she was simply doing what she'd been taught. Primatologist Frans de Waal uses her as a case study in animal empathy, arguing the gentleness went beyond training.

Where Is She Now?

Binti Jua is still alive at Brookfield Zoo, now in her late 30s. Her daughter Koola — the baby on her back that day — also lives at the zoo and has had three daughters of her own, making Binti Jua a grandmother.

Twenty years later, the same enclosure made headlines again when a gorilla named Harambe was shot after a child fell into his exhibit at Cincinnati Zoo. That incident had a very different outcome. Binti Jua's story is often cited as proof that it didn't have to end that way.