The ticket booths are empty and the gates are chained shut at an entrance to the Bronx Zoo in New York, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. Zoo officials say a visitor who leaped into an exhibit and was mauled by a tiger was alone with the 400-pound beast for about 10 minutes before being rescued. (AP Photo/Jim Fitzgerlad)
The ticket booths are empty and the gates are chained shut at an entrance to the Bronx Zoo in New York, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. Zoo officials say a visitor who leaped into an exhibit and was mauled by a tiger was alone with the 400-pound beast for about 10 minutes before being rescued. (AP Photo/Jim Fitzgerlad)
FILE- In this Sept. 20, 2010 photo provided by the Wildlife Conservation Society, three Amur tiger cubs rest by a fallen tree limb at the Tiger Mountain exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in New York. New York police say a man on Friday, Sept. 21, 2012, climbed into an exhibit at the Bronx Zoo and has been mauled by a tiger and lost a leg. (AP Photo/WCS, Julie Larsen Maher, File)
Bronx Zoo Director Jim Breheny speaks to the media during a news conference, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012, in New York. A visitor to the zoo was mauled by a tiger after he leaped from an elevated monorail train and plummeted over a fence into an exhibit, police and zoo officials said. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
NEW YORK (AP) ? A man mauled by a 400-pound tiger at the Bronx Zoo told a police officer after he was rescued that he made a conscious decision to jump from an elevated train into the animal's den, a police spokesman said Saturday.
A New York Police Department sergeant who responded to the scene Friday asked David Villalobos why he made his headline-grabbing leap, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
"Everybody in life makes choices," Villalobos responded, according to the spokesman.
Browne said that Villalobos' Facebook page suggests he's an animal lover but gives no further clues about his motive.
Villalobos, 25, remained hospitalized Saturday with bites and punctures on his arms, legs, shoulders and back, and a broken arm and a leg. He was heavily sedated and not speaking further to police, Browne said, adding that his actions were not being treated as a crime.
The mauling happened Friday afternoon in the Wild Asia exhibit, where a train with open sides takes visitors over the Bronx River and through a forest, where they glide along the top edge of a fence past elephants, deer and a tiger enclosure.
Passengers aren't strapped in on the ride, and 25-year-old David Villalobos apparently jumped out of his train car with a leap powerful enough to clear the 16-foot-high perimeter fence.
Villalobos was alone with a male Siberian tiger named Bashuta for about 10 minutes before he was rescued by zoo officials, who used a fire extinguisher to chase the animal away, said zoo director Jim Breheny.
"When someone is determined to do something harmful to themselves," Breheny said, "it's very hard to stop that."
Bashuta was returned to a holding area where it usually sleeps at night and will not be euthanized, zoo officials said.
"The tiger did nothing wrong in this episode," Breheny said.
A hospital spokeswoman said Villalobos was in stable condition Saturday but his family has requested that no further information be released.
"If not for the quick response by our staff and their ability to perform well in emergency situations, the outcome would have been very different," Breheny said.
After zoo staff chased the tiger off, Villalobos was instructed to roll under an electrified wire to get to safety, Breheny said. Zookeepers then called the tiger into a holding area, he said.
Bashuta is 11 years old and has been at the zoo for three years.
The Bronx Zoo, one of the nation's largest zoos, sprawls over 265 acres and contains hundreds of animals, many in habitats meant to resemble natural settings. Its exhibits include Tiger Mountain, Congo Gorilla Forest and World of Reptiles.
There are 10 tigers at the Wild Asia exhibit, but Bashuta was the only one on display at the time. There are no surveillance cameras in that area of the exhibit.
Zoo officials said they would review safety procedures but stressed that the situation was unusual.
"We review everything, but we honestly think we provide a safe experience," Breheny said. "And this is just an extraordinary occurrence. ... Somebody was deliberately trying to endanger themselves."
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Associated Press writers Tom Hays and David B. Caruso contributed to this report.
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