Elephant chases 47-yr-old woman, crushes her to death
A female park inspector has been crushed to death by an Elephant, reports say.
The elephant reportedly attacked Thembisile Mchunu, 47, as she made her way out of the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park in South Africa where she had been inspecting alien plants on Tuesday.
Mchunu’s colleague, Amon Sithole witnessed the incident:
“We had gone right inside the park and had left our car quite far away. One of the elephants made a sound and we thought it was warning the other ones that it had spotted human beings.
“After that it sprinted towards us and before we knew it, it was quite close to us,” said Sithole.
“We ran in different directions. Thembisile was behind one of us when she tripped and the elephant caught up with her.
“The elephant lifted her up before dropping and crushing her,” he said.
While extending condolences to the family of the deceased, KwaZulu-Natal wildlife spokesperson, Musa Mntambo said it was not clear what provoked the animal.
“We are not sure what provoked the animal, but elephants are aggressive when it’s mating season. It is also possible it got scared. We send condolences to her family, we will help the family to carry the funeral expenses,” said Mntambo.
Mntambo said this was the second such incident at the park. The first one was in 2006..
