Phil Bronstein, managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, has always wanted to see a Komodo dragon up close. And his wife at the time, Hollywood actress Sharon Stone, wanted to surprise her husband by showing him one at the Los Angeles Zoo. It sounded good on paper, but in the summer of 2001, Bronstein said goodbye to a piece of his leg forever after the animal had bitten it off.
But let’s rewind a bit to the beginning of the story. Sharon Stone thought she would surprise her husband, and as he told Time shortly after the incidentbecause the Komodo dragon “is the closest thing to prehistoric creatures,” and Bronstein was very interested in that. The actress began to inquire about which zoo could find such an animal, and one of their nannies, whose husband was a lion tamer, was a great help.
Stone could not have children, so the couple adopted a baby boy shortly before. The little boy, however, could not go with them to the Los Angeles Zoo that day because he had an ear infection. Bronstein had no idea they were going there, the visit was a complete surprise. When they got to the Komodo monitor section, their zoo attendant asked the man if he wanted to go near the animal, saying that it was completely calm, and even children used to pet it.
And Phil went inside. The monitor lizard started hissing at his shoe, which the zookeeper said was because it was a similar color to the dead rats it was fed. Bronstein took off his shoes and socks, and as Stone was about to take a photo of them together, the animal started. There was a roar and a crash. A Komodo dragon at the Los Angeles Zoo took a huge bite out of the San Francisco Chronicle editor’s leg while an Oscar-nominated actress was trying to photograph them. But it wasn’t a private visit, according to Stone, a group of children watched as her husband tried to wrestle a monitor lizard that could easily crush a human.
Bronstein switched quickly and didn’t start pulling his legs. The lizard tried to knock him off his feet, but it didn’t work. In return, however, he got a big chunk out of his foot: according to Stone’s subsequent account, he bit two tendons in the man’s leg, he also ruptured the tendon sheath, and his big toe just stung. Bronstein tolerated the situation very casually, as his wife at the time recounted:
“Somebody doesn’t become a Pulitzer finalist twice because he freaks out quickly!”
Bronstein grabbed the animal’s jaws, dislodged it, and sent it fleeing through the cage’s exit. The animal’s caretaker first went into shock and then tried to keep the monitor away from the victim, which Stone tried to pull out through the door used for feeding. The lizard, on the other hand, smelled blood and tried its best not to eat only that large piece of the man. Meanwhile, Stone fashioned a bandage from her husband’s inside-out sock after she managed to pull him out of the cage.
Due to a technical malfunction, it was not possible to call an ambulance, so the first aid workers of the zoo started to treat the man, who initially wanted to be taken to a hospital where there is no traumatology, but Sharon Stone quickly overruled this. His brother worked as a nurse, so he knew that the injured should be taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital with such an injury. That’s how it happened, and he received regular treatment there. It took months to recover.
“This is Los Angeles. I actually only had one meeting”
he said Bronstein later to the press.
2001 was not a lucky year for Stone and Bronstein’s marriage: the actress was diagnosed with subarachnoid hemorrhage, and her recovery took years. During his rehabilitation, Bronstein filed for divorce, and years later, their jointly adopted son, Roan, came under his guardianship.
