Ella Ford, 24, from Moreton, Wirral, had visited the park with her boyfriend and filmed the tiger moments before the attack.
She described seeing Chapman by the tiger enclosure “pacing around with his headphones in”.
A few minutes later, she saw he had “climbed up onto the barriers”.
A woman was close by talking to him, she said, before “he jumped in and crawled in front of the tiger, where the tiger was perched and just lay there”.
Ford said she then witnessed the tiger grab hold of him, and he was “shouting for help”.
She estimates around 15 to 20 people were on the enclosure’s raised visitor walkway before staff quickly evacuated the area, and shortly afterwards, the park.
She described members of the public as being “confused, like what on earth’s going on?”
“I just know some man was obviously trying to bang on the fence to try and deter the tiger away, but it obviously wasn’t doing anything,” she said.