Oktoberfest Attack Lands US Tourist In Court

An American woman who maimed another tourist at Munich's Oktoberfest this year told German courts that she couldn't really explain explain her actions.

According to The Local, the 30-year-old American woman was drinking at the Hofbräu tent at Oktoberfest when she put her elbow in another tourist's face, which set off a fight between her and that person's group of friends. During the ensuing altercation, she bit down on the lower lip of a 23-year-old Australian tourist and tore it off.

"She took my lip between her teeth and bit harder and harder," he said. "I tried to break away. She turned her head and tore my lip off. My lip was lying on the floor. I thought I was unconscious."

Doctors in Munich attempted to reattach the man's lip that day, but the operation was unsuccessful and the lip died off.

"I had to learn to speak again," the man said of his injuries. "I can't kiss anymore."

"I find it difficult to explain why I did it," the woman said in court.

In addition to paying the man €11,000, or about $15,000, in compensation for the injury, the woman was sentenced yesterday to one year and nine months suspended sentence.

The woman has been in prison in Germany since the Sept. 27 attack. Now that she's been sentenced, she is due to return to the U.S. today.