It happened at the Conservators Center in Burlington.
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The victim of the attack has been identified as 22-year-old Alexandra Black of New Palestine, Indiana.
Officials said she was a recent graduate of Indiana University, was a college intern and had been employed at the Conservator Center for about two weeks.
"This is the worst day of my life. We've lost a person. We've lost an animal. We have lost the faith in ourselves a little today," said Executive Director of the Conservators Center Mindy Stinner.
A husbandry team led by an animal keeper was carrying out a routine cleaning when one of the lions left a locked space, officials said.
According to the Conservators Center, the lion entered the space the humans were in and quickly killed Black.
"It's very important what we do here. This is the love of our lives. But we need to really look at everything and evaluate to make sure that we're okay moving forward, that everything here is going to be safe for our people and for the public and that everything here is how we need it to be," Stinner added.
The lion was shot and killed to allow Caswell County personnel to retrieve Black, officials said.
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Black's family released the following statement regarding the incident:
Alex loved animals. Our beautiful, intelligent, passionate Alex had worked, unpaid, at several animal-related ventures, most recently at Wolf Park in Battleground, Indiana. This was her fourth internship, because she really wanted to make a career of working with animals.
She was looking forward to this first out-of-state internship at the Conservators Center in North Carolina that started 10 days ago.
She was a beautiful young woman who had just started her career, there was a terrible accident, and we are mourning. But she died following her passion.
We ask that you consider donating to Wolf Park in Battleground, Indiana, to honor Alex.
The Conservators Center is closed until further notice, as the investigation is ongoing.