A freak accident killed an endangered Amur tiger cub at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs last week, zoo officials said Tuesday. 

The anesthetized cub, Mila, 2, fell off a bench at an angle that caused a traumatic spinal injury, the zoo said. Mila had come to the zoo in March from Toronto, where she had been the only cub in her litter to survive birth.

The fatal fall happened within a minute of Mila receiving anesthesia for a medically necessary dental procedure. Handlers were incapable of reacting and reaching her in time to prevent the fall.

“She could have slid off from that height a hundred times and landed in a variety of other positions and been unaffected. The team quickly entered her den when it was safe and diligently tried for 40 minutes to give her life-saving care,” Dr. Eric Klaphake, the zoo’s head veterinarian, said in a statement.

Zoo officials said the tragedy shows why decisions to anesthetize animals are not taken lightly.

“You can plan and plan and things still go wrong. Our team delivered exactly the right amount of drugs to a very calm tiger who had trained for this moment. We have successfully anesthetized countless tigers in this same den, and have never experienced an accident like this,” said Bob Chastain, the zoo’s president and CEO.

There are about 500 Amur tigers, also called Siberian tigers, extant in the wild. Another 100 or so are living in American and Canadian facilities, the zoo said.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.