Boy’s Family Can’t Forget Tiger Attack : Despite Award, Mauling Has Left Emotional, Physical Scars

It was understandable that 5-year-old Anthony Stopani, who was mauled by a tiger at Lion Country Safari two years ago, would say, “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up.”

Thanks to his family’s attorney, a settlement announced Friday will ensure the Westminster kindergartener payments ranging from $4 million to more than $20 million during his lifetime.

On Saturday, the Stopanis sat in the living room of their modest rented home, where the decor is dominated by framed photographs of their four sons and the children’s crayon drawings. They talked about what they will do with the money.

“Our life styles aren’t really going to change,” said Carlos Stopani, 30, a foreman of an Irvine furniture factory. “We can’t touch (Anthony’s) money. It goes only for medical expenses until he becomes 18 . . . We have to go into court to ask for the money (to pay for bills).”

The settlement package, primarily a schedule of tax-free future payments, initially will pay Anthony $1,000 a month, to be placed in a secured bank account. The payments will gradually increase each year, until he receives $20,000 a month by the time he is 55 or 60, said the Stopanis’ attorney, Herbert Hafif of Claremont.

In addition, when Anthony is 25, he will receive lump-sum payments every five years that will start at $100,000 and increase by $50,000 each payment period, up to $500,000 at age 65. Payments are guaranteed for 20 years, by which time $4 million will have been paid. If he should die before then, the remaining portion of that amount would go to his heirs, Hafif said.

Brothers, Parents to Get Payments

The settlement also provides for $40,000 payments to Anthony’s two brothers (for the emotional trauma they suffered from seeing the attack) when they reach college age, as well as immediate payment of $375,000 to the boy and $200,000 to the boys’ parents. Hafif said his fee of $250,000 will be payable out of the initial payment of $375,000.

“We can do whatever we want with it,” Carlos Stopani said of the money he and his wife, Naomi, will receive. “My wife wants to buy a house. She wants to find a house that she likes that’s big enough for all the kids.

“We never said ‘this is how much we want,’ ” Stopani added. “We are not lawyers, we didn’t know how much to ask for. We were only in court once, and we didn’t even say anything. We just trusted the attorney, who did a great job.”

Still, the Stopanis say that even an astronomical sum of money couldn’t erase the still-vivid memory of the tiger’s vicious attack on their son. The family still has photographs they took of the tiger show that day, and Anthony points out the animal that mauled him.

Anthony was almost 3 when his mother brought him, his two brothers and other relatives from their home in Upland to the now-closed Irvine animal park on Oct. 23, 1982.

As the family left the crowded grandstand area of an animal show, a Siberian tiger escaped its cage, grabbed Anthony by the head and carried him about 50 feet to some bushes, where it mauled him.

Fire Extinguisher Used

It was only after a park employee sprayed the tiger’s face with a fire extinguisher that the boy could be rescued and given emergency treatment.

“I thought my son was gone,” Naomi Stopani recalled emotionally. “My other sons were hysterical and trembling. I was eight months pregnant with David (now 2). I remember wanting to hold (Anthony’s) hand, but you know kids at that age: they’ve learned to walk and they want their independence. He was a little ahead of us, and the tiger just came head-on.

“I just felt so helpless,” she continued. “There was all this shouting and screaming. Someone announced ‘there’s a tiger loose’ over the loudspeakers. I mean, it was a nightmare come true.”

Anthony was rushed to Mission Viejo Hospital. Shortly after he and his parents arrived, Naomi Stopani went into labor and soon gave birth. She, Anthony and little David went home the same day.

“I went in with one (family member in the hospital) and came out with three,” Carlos remembered. “I was going room to room.”

Anthony’s skull was punctured and he suffered permanent, mild paralysis on his left side and scarring of his legs, arms and head. It will be a few years before doctors can determine if the injuries will cause epilepsy, as can happen after such an injury, the boy’s attorney and parents said.

They said most of the paralysis has subsided, but that Anthony still drags his left foot when he walks. Because a plate on his skull--where an S-shaped scar remains from surgery to remove bone fragments lodged in his brain--has not been replaced, Anthony can’t run and play normally with his school mates, but must be extremely cautious.

The toothy 5-year-old seemed nonchalant as his parents related the story of the tiger’s attack, but he is still self-conscious at times about his scarred legs and arms, usually covered by long sleeves and pants. He rolled up his corduroys to show a disfigured left knee and calf, but did so without a word.

“He’s innocent now,” said Naomi Stopani, 28, who works part time as a dental hygienist. “But when he gets older, and he wants to wear shorts, and girls look at it . . . It will be harder for him.”

Said his mother, “He hasn’t forgotten about it, because we were watching the (Rose) parade and he said ‘That’s the tiger that bit me.’ ”

She said the family doesn’t believe Anthony has nightmares about the attack, “but he wakes up in the middle of the night a lot, still, and crawls into bed with us.”

Naomi Stopani did have nightmares, and finally turned to a psychiatrist to work out the horror of watching her son being dragged away. She said tearfully, “Every day for a year, I relived it.

“I don’t wanna ever go to a zoo again,” she said. “We tried to go to a little zoo in Santa Ana, but I got a big headache and I got real emotional and we had to leave. He shouldn’t see me like that. I don’t want to encourage him to have that fear.

“I think,” she added, “he’s got a chance to outlive it.”