Four people, two couples, are lucky to be alive after encountering a rampaging elephant. The animal managed to flip over their canoes. It also struck one woman with its trunk.
The couples were from the UK and US. They had been paddling through the Okavango Delta in Botswana on Saturday. However, their guide took them too close to a nearby mother elephant and her two children. In response to the invasion, a bull in the herd attacked the four. The guides tried to push the canoes away from the elephant.
But it quickly closed the gap and knocked over the canoes. The four tourists ended up in the Delta, which is known for crocodiles. The guides abandoned them to the elephants and sought safety themselves. The angry elephant returned and attacked one of the tourists with its trunk, knocking her underwater.
Very Angry Elephant
Fortunately, she avoided the stomps of the creature as it tried to crush her. Surfacing, the woman reached her husband as the bull left with the herd.
A former South African game ranger told Daily Mail that the four are lucky. 'They had a very lucky escape indeed because all four could just have easily been killed by that angry bull. The woman was lucky not have been gored, but if it had held her down for another few seconds, it would probably have drowned her, so she can praise the Lord he didn't."
They continued, "There are thousands of these dug-out traditional Makoro canoes on the Delta, poling tourists through the reeds to view elephants, hippo, birds, buck and crocodiles. This bull attacked because it was protecting its young, and it seems the guides misjudged how close they could take the tourists safely and made a potentially fatal mistake. There could well have been the need for four body bags if Lady Luck had not favored them. It will certainly give them a story to tell found the fire for many years to come."
They are very lucky that the elephant didn't kill them.
