Canadian Teen suffers 'huge rips' in her body after trying to KISS a lion.

A Canadian teen got a little too close for comfort to a lion she was helping care for in a South African rehabilitation facility when the beast tried to drag her into its cage by the legs.

Lauren Fagen, 18, was volunteering at the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre when she leaned in to kiss the beast's fur.

The Montreal girl was then pulled into the animal's cage, her legs gnawed and gashed by the lion and its mate, before she was finally dragged away by a lifesaving fellow volunteer.

Worth it: Lauren Fagen plays with some lion cubs at Moholoholo Wildlife Centre in South Africa where she was later badly mauled. Before the attack, she wrote on Facebook that the hard work at the refuge was worth it

It began as a dream. Fagen was all set to attend McGill University in the fall and wanted to indulge a lifelong passion for animals.
She travelled to the Limpopo province of South Africa to work with the animals at Moholoholo, a center established in 1991 for the rehabilitation of wild African animals like rhinos and honey badgers.

They give a home to injured and poisoned animals that can no longer live in the wild.
Fagen’s job was to clean cages. Only trained professionals are allowed to feed the lions.

¿I didn¿t realize he could stick his paws through': Fagen thought she was safe behind the fence of the lion cage

Docile? A male lion, like the one that attacked Fagen, basks in the sun at South Africa's Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Fagen said the lion was being very docile before the attack

Savage: Fagen suffered 10 gash wounds once fellow students pulled her from the animals' grip. She is now recovering from 'huge rips' in her flesh

But Fagen wasn’t feeding 5-year-old Duma, a male, when the attack occurred. She was leaning in to kiss its fur.

‘I didn’t realize he could stick his paws through,’ Fagen said of the powerful feline.
The lion grabbed her and dragged her legs into the cage, where it began tearing at them
Its mate joined in, as well, by pouncing on the girl’s feet.

‘I should have died or lost a leg. It was a miracle that I survived,’ she said.
Fagen said the big cat was being ‘very, very friendly’ before the attack hinting she may have been lulled into a false sense of safety.

‘She’ll have some scarring on her legs, but there won’t be any permanent damage,’ a manager of the wildlife centre, Marisa Reinach, told the Globe and Mail.
There isn’t any permanent damage to Fagen’s love of animals, either.
She said she signed a waiver when she arrived at the center and knew the risks.
It was the first attack at the 20-year-old center and, according to Moholoholo founder Brian Jones, things could have been much worse.
‘This is quite mild – it’s a miracle it wasn’t worse,’ he said. ‘She came here telling people that she wanted to hug an animal.’