quote:

Dear Friends of Tom,

I suspect most of you, like myself, are traveling or out of town since it is that time in August when there are no lines in the coffee shops. I passed through town for 16 hours today and was lucky to be able to stop by Stanford Hospital ICU and pay our good buddy Tom a visit. As evidenced by the photo below, he is in good hands and most importantly good spirits. He gave me permission to snap this photo and share with all of you along with a brief summary of his face to face meeting with a 12,000 pound elephant. Details below but for the ADD's in the group (most of you), he was attacked, gored, mauled on August 1st in the Serengeti desert while observing a clan of about a dozen juvenile and mother elephants. One mother apparently did not like his cologne and in the absence of any command at all of the English language, acted out her emotions quite explosively, With a few surgeries behind him and a few more ahead, he is quite likely to fully recover and walk again.



And now, for the rest of the story:

On August 1st, the balance of his safari entourage decided to take the day off so Tom and the guide decided to go out to a desert watering hole where a number of wild animals tend to gather in the morning. At the "hole" were animals including Cape buffalo, zebra and a dozen or so juvenile elephants and there mothers. His basic safari training had taught him that if elephants have their ears back (relaxed) there is no danger. The training also taught them that if an elephant charges, the safest tactic is to stand perfectly still (based on Tom's experience, I suggest checking for alternate strategies before your next safari). So..... Tom and the guide are standing 200 yds from the drinking animals when suddenly and without warning, one large female turns (apparently catching their scent) and deploys her ears to the wide position indicating an immediate change in mood from complacent to "really pissed off", in an instant the 12,000 pound 12 ft tall animal accelerates to its full charging speed of approximately 30 mph with her GPS set for Tom and guide. I asked Tom if it was like the size of a VW bus to which he responded "are you kidding me", a VW bus only weighs 1500 pounds, this thing is more like a dump truck.



With the animal just a few feet short of them, the guide unloaded his large caliber rifle into the forehead of the charging elephant. This apparently was only a small distraction however as the hurtling animal continued it's charge and hit the guide head on at full force resulting in a sound that I shall let Tom describe to you in person. The elephant then turned his attention to Tom and proceeded to toss, stomp, gore him as Tom reviewed this singular thought in his mind "Dear God, please make this stop." His memory is blurry of the details, I suspect partly due to the steady morphine drip in his arm today but mostly due to the shock resultant from the mayhem he was enduring.



In consideration of Tom's modesty and the readers appetite for details I'll simply summarize his obvious injuries: A very large and deep wound to his left thigh, about the size of a half a loaf of bread and likely caused by an elephant tusk. Broken tibia and fibia on his right leg and one other bone I think. This is the worst injury and will require several more reconstructive surgeries in order to repair fully. 4 broken ribs, and a nice shiner to the left eye just for dramatic effect I presume.



When the elephant finally took her rest, the guide was able to radio for help back to camp. Numerous vehicles arrived shortly to create a perimeter around Tom. The air ambulance had to fly in from Nairobi and they were afraid to move him so he had to wait there at the site of the attack for 3 hours. He was then airlifted to a hospital in Nairobi where they began to address his many wounds. Tom's primary concern was to get stabilized enough to be able to make the 18 hour trip back to CA where he and Stacy knew much better medical care awaited him. Approximately 48 hours after the attack, he finally arrived in the bay area at midnight and was taken directly to surgery. Since then they had taken hundreds scans of his body to assess any other injuries and to determine how best to reconstruct the badly damaged right leg.



Tom is very upbeat about the incredible medical team of people that are supporting him (including Mohler). He thinks he will be in the hospital for about another 10 days and is very optimistic about having a pretty full recovery with a lot of physical therapy ahead of him. He says his goal is to be back back in shape to make the Desert Cup at Thanksgiving.



As you can see, he has his computer at his side and asked that we send him some good jokes and tales of our summer travels to keep him entertained.



Here's wishing you full and speedy recovery Tom.



-Joe

quote:

Originally posted by buckeyeshooter:
Yea, but next time I would be in a hunting area with a tag and a 458. No reason you can't shoot the horse that threw you!!

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