Camel attack in Tennessee: Animal kills 2 men at Shirley Farms in Obion after escaping

Officials said police responded to a call about a free-roaming camel attacking people at Shirley Farms in Obion, a rural town in the northwest state.

According to a statement from the Obion County Sheriff’s Office, the alerting officers began providing assistance to two unconscious men on the farm when the camel “attacked” a police vehicle.

The animal “then [moved] to MPs trying to take a victim to the emergency room” and “at that time officers had to put down the camel for the safety of everyone on site”.

The victims, identified as 42-year-old Bobby Matheny and 67-year-old Tommy Gunn, were pronounced dead at the scene.

It is unclear how the camel escaped from its enclosure, what provoked the attacks and what kind of injuries the men sustained.

In 2018, six children and one adult were injured when a camel broke loose and ran wild at a Pittsburgh circus. And in 2015, two people were trampled to death when a man snuck into a camel’s pen on a Texas farm.