DUNLAP, Calif. A coroner said the 24-year-old volunteer who was mauled to death by a lion at an exotic animal park in California said she died quickly on a broken neck.
Lion attack death: Why was woman alone?
Fatal lion attack in California
Fresno County Coroner David Hadden says Dianna Hanson was already dead when the 550-pound lion was tossing her body about its enclosure shortly after the Wednesday afternoon attack.
Hadden said Thursday that bite and claw marks found on Hanson's body were sustained after she died. Haddon said investigators believe the lion broke Haddon's neck with a paw swipe.
A group of federal and state agencies are investigating the attack at Cat Haven, a private zoo about 45 minutes east of Fresno. State investigators who protect workplace safety said they are trying to determine whether Cat Haven has the required written procedures that employees follow to stay safe.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture enforces the federal Animal Welfare Act and hopes to learn whether the 4-year-old lion that Hanson showed any behavior prior to the attack that might have indicated potential danger.
Fresno County sheriff's investigators and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife want to know why Hanson was in the enclosure with the animal. A source familiar with Cat Haven told CBS News that accessing the lion's enclosure would be violating its rules.
The Seattle-area intern had loved lions and tigers since childhood, "was absolutely fearless" around them and hoped to work at a zoo after her six-month internship, her father said.
"She was at ease with those big cats," Paul Hanson, an attorney, said of his daughter. "They liked her."
"It was just a dream job for her," he said, adding that she gave him a little tour and showed him the lion Cous Cous, which authorities said killed her.
Hanson said his daughter had worked with big cats before but told him she would not be allowed to go into the lion cage.
On Wednesday, deputies found the woman severely injured and still lying inside the enclosure with the 4-year-old male African lion nearby, said Fresno County sheriff's Lt. Bob Miller.
Another park worker couldn't lure the lion into another pen, so deputies shot and killed it to safely reach the wounded woman, but she died at the scene, he said.
Cat Haven founder and executive director Dale Anderson cried as he read a one-sentence statement Wednesday about the fatal mauling at the private zoo he has operated since 1993.
Anderson returned to the zoo in Thursday.
`I feel awful," he said
Investigators were trying to determine why the intern was inside the enclosure and what might have provoked the attack, sheriff's Sgt. Greg Collins said. The facility is normally closed on Wednesdays, and only one other worker was there when the mauling happened, he said.
Authorities are not pursuing a criminal investigation because all leads indicate Hanson's death was the result of an accident, Miller said.
Dianna Hanson's older brother, Paul Hanson, said the family knew the line of work she chose was risky, but added she had followed her passion to care for animals since a young age. She grew up loving the family's two cats, volunteered at a local animal shelter and hoped to ultimately get certified to pursue a career in wildlife conservation or work at a zoo.
"Anybody that encountered Dianna couldn't help being enraptured with her and with her enthusiasm," he said in an interview. "She knew the risks and we knew the risks, but that was her passion. You always wondered when she was going to work, but the risks were part of that."
Paul Hanson said his daughter graduated from Mountlake Terrace High School and was a 2011 graduate of Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., where she majored in biology.
During college, she worked at what Hanson described as "a sizeable estate" outside Bellingham that was home to exotic animals, including three tigers and a lion. It was there she learned to care for the cats, he said.
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