I was gored by an elephant - and survived
By NATASHA COURTENAY-SMITH

10:05am on 15th June 2007


At least twice a week for the past seven years, Wendy Martin has woken from the same nightmare.

In it she is being tossed into the air by a huge beast as a growing cloud of dust clogs her eyes and nose, and pain engulfs her every limb.

Usually, Wendy, 46, wakes with a start, running out of her bedroom and on to the landing of her five-bedroom house in Godalming, Surrey.

As her husband works abroad, it is often one of her children, hearing their mother's bloodcurdling screams, who takes her by the shoulders and guides her back to bed.


Traumatised: Wendy Martin (above) was nearly killed by a stampeding elephant while on holiday in Kenya


It's been seven years since Wendy was attacked by an elephant at the exclusive Il Ngwesi Lodge in Kenya, run by the wealthy conservationist Ian Craig, father of Prince William's former girlfriend Jecca.

But the events of that sunny morning in the African bush still haunt her.

And it is not surprising. The elephant's tusks pierced her body from front to back in four separate places, destroying her kidney and narrowly missing other vital organs.

The animal also knelt on her, its three-ton weight shattering her pelvis.

She's since had 16 operations to rebuild her body.

Although improved by plastic surgery, the scars which run along her legs, stomach, back and buttocks are still horrific.

When she recently mustered the courage to wear a bikini again, she was asked by a stranger on the beach whether she'd been attacked by a shark.

"Even now, certain triggers, such as the sound of an elephant on television, take me right back to the attack," says Wendy, a housewife and former physiotherapist, who lives with her husband Steve, 53, director of marketing for the Qatar Financial Centre, and children Matthew, 17, Rosanna, 15, and Emily, 11.



Wendy describes how the elephants' 'tusks pierced my body, before tossing me in the air'


"We used to have a large wooden elephant in the kitchen, a souvenir we'd brought back from Africa. But it was too much for me to have to look at it every day, and I've put it in the garage."

This week, at least one part of Wendy's nightmare came to an end with an emphatic court victory in Kenya, after the judge found that Ian Craig, as the owner of the land, was partly to blame for her injuries.

Wendy says: "In court, Ian Craig recently said that he hoped the whole thing will be 'over and forgotten' as soon as possible. I've never heard such callous disregard.

"It certainly won't be forgotten for me. As well as the nightmares, I have to take painkillers every day, my balance has been affected, I've got nerve damage all over my body and I'm severely limited in what I'm able to do physically.

"That said, I know I'm very lucky to be alive. I've seen a list of attacks by elephants over recent years and everyone had died except me."

At the time of the attack, Wendy and her family were living in Nairobi, Kenya, where her husband, then a British diplomat, had been posted.

In June 2000, after four years in Africa, they were due to return home. As a goodbye to the country, they decided to spend a final weekend at the luxurious Il Ngwesi lodge.

Situated five hours from Nairobi, adjacent to Ian Craig's 45,000-acre Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, the lodge, perched on a hilltop with panoramic views, has hosted romantic breaks for the likes of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

"At the time, Il Ngwesi billed itself as a "wilderness experience with little or no game"," says Wendy.

"We'd been there twice before and we loved it. The lodge itself is run on a daytoday basis by local tribesmen, it's completely open and has a pool.

"It suited us to experience the remote setting but with none of the animals that would naturally worry me having young children - or so I'd thought. Certainly, that was the impression we were given.

"For a start, all the rooms were open, meaning any animal like a leopard could walk straight in as you slept."

On their first evening at the £130-anight lodge, Wendy and her friends were asked by the manager if they would like to go for a run in the morning.

It was agreed that Wendy, and her friends Jenny and Jeremy would rise at 7am to go for a jog before it got too hot.

"Some people have suggested that because I went running through the bush I somehow deserved to be attacked," says Wendy.

"But this was offered to us as an activity by staff and I knew my friend had been running before, so I thought it was safe. Certainly, there was nothing to suggest otherwise."

But 45 minutes into the run, as the group headed back to the lodge, they came face to face with an elephant.

"The first thing I was aware of was the sound of it trumpeting," recalls Wendy. "Then I saw its head - it had huge tusks, its ears were flapping and I knew straight away we were in trouble.

"The guide shouted 'Stop' and we all stood perfectly still. Then he just shouted 'Run' and we all scattered in different directions. I now know that had we stayed together, we'd have had more chance of frightening the elephant away.

"I also now know that we were just 300 yards away from the steps up to the lodge and, had the guide pointed this out, we might have reached safety.

"A lot of people who've survived traumatic accidents can't remember much about the event itself, but I can recall the whole thing. I remember tripping, the guide helping me up and running for my life.

"I could hear the elephant closing in on me. In desperation I threw myself under a bush and curled myself into a ball. I was absolutely terrified.

"Next thing I knew, its head was butting into me and I could hear the sound of its tusks slicing through the earth around me. It pushed me through the bush, its tusks piercing my body, before it picked me up and tossed me into the air.

"When I landed, I can remember thinking to myself that I must lie perfectly still and play dead in the hope it would stop. Thankfully, it worked. The elephant disappeared into the bush with a snort."

The first person to reach Wendy was her friend Jeremy, who screamed for help. Meanwhile Jenny, who had by now returned to the lodge, immediately got into a Land Rover with her husband and began to search for her jogging companions.

The local guide, however, was never to be seen again.

"All I knew was that I was in excruciating pain," says Wendy. "I looked down at my body and I'll never forget the horrific sight I saw. There were holes everywhere and to my side lay a mass of blood and flesh.

"One of my first thoughts was that I needed to get covered up as I was getting cold despite the rising heat of the day, and that I was going to die of shock."

By this time, Jenny and some staff from the lodge had appeared at Wendy's side.

Incredibly, none of the staff seemed to have any medical training. It fell to Wendy, who knew basic first aid, to take charge. She says: "I knew that I was mortally wounded and in order to survive I had to stay conscious.

"I asked Jenny to cover me up and she got the staff to take off their traditional red Shukas so she could wrap them around me."

Back at the lodge, the staff radioed Ian Craig for help, and Wendy's husband, who had been asleep, was informed about what had happened.

"Steve looked horror-stricken when he arrived to see me," says Wendy. "He later told me I was unrecognisable and just a mangled mess covered in lacerations from head to toe. Steve rushed back to the lodge to get a stretcher.

"Then he sat down next to me. I was so badly injured that we feared the worst and basically we said goodbye to each other, and I asked him to say goodbye to the children, too."

The group sat huddled around Wendy for around half an hour until Ian Craig arrived with two planes and a private nurse who had been caring for one of Craig's friends, who had cancer.

He then flew Wendy to a bush hospital an hour away, but it was declared her injuries were too severe to treat with their limited facilities. Wendy was then flown on to Nairobi, arriving in hospital four hours after the attack.

"Throughout the flight I thought about my children," she says. "I knew if I lost consciousness I would die and I was determined to stay conscious for them.

"My whole body felt like a block of ice and I knew shock was setting in. Thankfully, the elephant's tusks hadn't pierced any major arteries otherwise I would have died there and then from loss of blood."

At hospital, Wendy underwent a six-hour operation to stabilise her condition and was admitted to intensive care.

Her list of injuries includes a shattered kidney (which was removed), fractures to her pelvis, sacrum and lumber vertebrae, broken ribs and "through and through" wounds to the abdomen, lumbar areas and legs where the elephant's tusks had passed right through her body.

The first few days were critical and doctors warned her family to expect the worst.

"I remember feeling certain that I would die from my injuries and every time I opened my eyes, I was astonished I was still alive," she says.

"The hardest part for me came four days later when the children came to visit. It still makes me tearful to think about it now. I'd never been parted from them before, and they arrived to see my face swollen with bruises and my body hooked up to all sorts of machines.

"The three children stood at my bedside and cried. They were very distressed and the look of trauma and pain etched on their faces will stay with me for ever."

After ten days in Nairobi, Wendy, who had private health insurance, was flown back to the UK, where she spent a further three months in hospital.

Her recovery was far from straightforward. She risked paralysis during an operation to pin her pelvis back together with metal screws, and once back home suffered from numerous hernias in which the holes in her muscle made by the elephant's tusk opened up.

The wound in her leg also became infected, opening up to a gaping eight inches wide.

"At one stage, I was certain I was going to have to have my leg amputated," says Wendy. "It was a very hard time for me. I had to focus on my life hour by hour and was in constant, excruciating pain.

"Plus, I had three children to care for. I've always been an active and fit mother and suddenly a good day for me meant hobbling around on a zimmerframe or using a wheelchair.

"My husband was still posted abroad, by now in Dubai, so I had to have a live-in nurse to help me cope.

I tried to be upbeat in front of the children and I kept telling them it would be all right, but really I knew it was going to be a very long time before anything was all right.

"Even once the wounds started to heal, I found it a struggle to come to terms with my new body. I'd always been very proud of my figure - I went to the gym and ate healthily.

"Now I felt like a mangled wreck. Not surprisingly, I don't feel comfortable wearing swimwear. I try to wear my scars with pride but people do stare."

Alongside her recovery, Wendy faced a lengthy legal battle with Ian Craig. Shortly after the accident, her husband emailed Craig asking if there was insurance and also wanting to know how such an attack could occur.

At that point, Wendy says, all they wanted were answers and reassurance that insurance was in place.

At first, Craig said there was insurance, and lawyers from the two parties began to correspond.

But, after an astonishing three years of letters between the lawyers, it emerged that there was no insurance. Wendy then decided to sue, and launched a civil lawsuit.

"I had no idea that Ian Craig was a powerful landowner, or the father of a girl Prince William had been out with," she says. "Given what I'd been through, I just wanted justice and I felt a great responsibility to try to prevent another family enduring such a horrific experience."

Over the past four years, Wendy has spent over £100,000 - her family's entire savings - on legal fees and has returned to Nairobi on six separate occasions.

The legal battle Wendy faced was finally concluded this week when it was ruled that Ian Craig, Il Ngwesi Company and Lewa Wildlife Conservancy failed to take reasonable care of their guests and were jointly 100 per cent liable.

It also emerged during the court hearing that the lodge manager and Ian Craig had been made aware by a security patrol the evening before the attack that there was a big herd of elephants with young around the lodge.

This information was not imparted to the guests.

There were also no rules in place at the time that armed guards should accompany guests in the bush, which is essential if big game are around.

"It made my blood run cold when I heard that they knew the elephants were there all along," says Wendy. "I'd never have gone running if I'd known there was any danger at all. I'm not the sort of person who takes risks."

"Throughout, Ian Craig tried to manoeuvre his way out of the situation, saying a ruling against him would damage conservation efforts in the area.

"But this had nothing to do with conservation - it's about having a duty of care towards paying guests.

"I'm quite sure Ian Craig has done a lot of valuable conservation work, but that does not change the fact his negligence nearly saw me killed and could have left my children without their mother."

Wendy now stands to receive a payout of £800,000, although the exact sum has yet to be settled. However, she is adamant that, for her, none of this has been about money.

"In fact, given what's happened so far, it could be many years before I see a penny," she says. "But at least Ian Craig has been forced to recognise his responsibility. I'm determined to get on with my life.

"At least now, I'm hopeful that, despite my injuries, I'll be able to look forward, not back."

But on the Disney films Tembo is our friend!

How could this happen....

Some people simply don't get it. Wild animals will kill your sensitive new age city ass just as quick as anybody else.

Maybe Timothy "fedwell" Treadwell could shed some light on this subject.

Oh wait he's been eaten.

quote:

Don't go jogging in the bush

Or if you CHOOSE to go jogging, understand and respect the risks and take responsibility for your actions and potential outcome. I had quite a few good runs in the Caprivi's deep sand, and ones pace does tend to quicken with an approaching herd of ele looking for a cool afternoon drink.

shit like this just pisses me off. Your in Africa in the Bush a place where lions and elephants etc. etc. live. Your going jogging in it you get the hell crushed out of you and you want to blame the owner of the lodge.
Your not in your cushy city home anymnore you are in the BUSH ok which part of that do you not understand. There are WILD ANIMALS in the bush.
Lady you just be thankful that you can still breathe, but no you have to be a stupid city
b*&&ch and sue lodge owner etc. etc. instead of just taking responsibility for your own actions.
Then the husband emailing Ian and asking how such an attack could occur. Well the answer is because there are wild animals out there WILD animals not tame. WIld animals will kill your A$$..
Ok I will get off my rant for now.

She is an Idiot. In her world things like this shouldn't happen. We all have Free Will to choose and she made a wrong choice. And by doing this she now thinks that $ will cure her problems, it wont. She is naive (having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality)

I guess by putting up a portrait of herself she thinks that this will draw understanding to her and her situation. Maybe even cover some of her guilt, by making people think how sweet she is, at taking the companies to court that she says are responsible for her "accident".

When you play with fire you sometimes get burned, and burned she got.

No one is responsible but her.

...typical Earth Muffin mentality: "It's not my fault, blame it on someone else."

She should have been jogging with a 458 that she knew how to use expertly! I have to wonder how anyone can wander off in DG areas without precaution.

But it wasn't Craig's elephant. I just don't
understand. I remember one time a couple of tourist ladies who weren't even staying at our lodge were down in the Omo River splashing each othe in ther underwear. I yelled at them to get out of there. We've lost workers to croc's at the same place. People are stupid!
Rich Elliott

I think you are all being too hard on her. Let's look at the facts as presented so far.

1. She was invited by the staff to go jogging. I think it is fair to say that since the owner/operator knows that his guests are not armed he should provide a warning or preferably an armed guide instead of an unarmed guide.

2. It has been stated that the guides on this conservancy were not armed because there typically were no DG there to worry about.

3. It is the responsibility of the owner/operator to warn guests of the dangers of DG if present. The owner/operator failed to do this even though he had been informed that elephant were in the lodge area. In fact she and other guests had been led to believe that there were no DG to worry about.

In Kenya you would play hell getting a rifle into the country just for self protection against DG.

I suspect those of you here who criticize her would not sue the local McDonalds if you got food poisoning and found out that the restaurant owner knew before hand that the hamburger you were served had E. coli in it.

The courts decision sounds fair to me.

465H&H

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
I think you are all being too hard on her. Let's look at the facts as presented so far.

1. She was invited by the staff to go jogging. I think it is fair to say that since the owner/operator knows that his guests are not armed he should provide a warning or preferably an armed guide instead of an unarmed guide.

2. It has been stated that the guides on this conservancy were not armed because there typically were no DG there to worry about.

3. It is the responsibility of the owner/operator to warn guests of the dangers of DG if present. The owner/operator failed to do this even though he had been informed that elephant were in the lodge area. In fact she and other guests had been led to believe that there were no DG to worry about.

In Kenya you would play hell getting a rifle into the country just for self protection against DG.

I suspect those of you here who criticize her would not sue the local McDonalds if you got food poisoning and found out that the restaurant owner knew before hand that the hamburger you were served had E. coli in it.

The courts decision sounds fair to me.

465H&H

What do you mean we are being too hard on her. It says in the Article that they had been on AFRICA FOR 4 YEARS. Long enough to know better. Maybe they could of employed a little common sense.
As was said above it wasn't Craig's elephant.

The legal doctrine that I think applies is "assumption of the risk". I agree with Jarrod that you'd have to be amazingly stupid to have lived in Africa and not know that running ANYWHERE carries risks, be it in J'burg, the Sudan or the bush.

I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that even if the guide had said to her that there might be some DG around, she'd have still gone running because in her Disney'ed mind, there are no "bad" animals, just bad people.

465H&H... what about snakes? Surely there were various and sundry stuff around that bit from cobras to insects.... Malaria? Falling Russian satilites? I think the judge confused liability with insurance. Nobody is so stupid to think Kenya is Hyde Park. I respectfully disagree with you. I saw Tarzan and therefore know that Africa is dangerous.

So now we can put a face to the 800,000 British Pounds.

You see, this just supports my argument that jogging is not good for you.....

That, and it's bad for your knees, your hip joints,......

I used to be guilty of going for 1/4 mile-or-less walks with just a camera---until a lioness made a kill in plain view of our camp in the middle of the day. Never leave camp without your rifle.
"You always see the really big ones when you don't have your gun" old High-School saying (regarding overweight folks).

She should have been jogging with someone who could shoot the ele in the brain with a first shot out of his well maintained rifle,using the RIGHT bullet,and not a naturalist or someone IMAGINING he is an ADVANCED hunter and deserves a double rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
I think you are all being too hard on her. Let's look at the facts as presented so far.

1. She was invited by the staff to go jogging. I think it is fair to say that since the owner/operator knows that his guests are not armed he should provide a warning or preferably an armed guide instead of an unarmed guide.

2. It has been stated that the guides on this conservancy were not armed because there typically were no DG there to worry about.

3. It is the responsibility of the owner/operator to warn guests of the dangers of DG if present. The owner/operator failed to do this even though he had been informed that elephant were in the lodge area. In fact she and other guests had been led to believe that there were no DG to worry about.

In Kenya you would play hell getting a rifle into the country just for self protection against DG.

I suspect those of you here who criticize her would not sue the local McDonalds if you got food poisoning and found out that the restaurant owner knew before hand that the hamburger you were served had E. coli in it.

The courts decision sounds fair to me.

465H&H

by any chance are you a personal injury attourney????

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
I think you are all being too hard on her. Let's look at the facts as presented so far.

1. She was invited by the staff to go jogging. I think it is fair to say that since the owner/operator knows that his guests are not armed he should provide a warning or preferably an armed guide instead of an unarmed guide.

2. It has been stated that the guides on this conservancy were not armed because there typically were no DG there to worry about.

3. It is the responsibility of the owner/operator to warn guests of the dangers of DG if present. The owner/operator failed to do this even though he had been informed that elephant were in the lodge area. In fact she and other guests had been led to believe that there were no DG to worry about.

In Kenya you would play hell getting a rifle into the country just for self protection against DG.

I suspect those of you here who criticize her would not sue the local McDonalds if you got food poisoning and found out that the restaurant owner knew before hand that the hamburger you were served had E. coli in it.

The courts decision sounds fair to me.

465H&H

I agree with 465H&H. A lodge that advertises it is free from dangerous game and that it is safe to be invited to go jogging by the lodge manager without him mentioning he was aware that elephants were present within 300 metres of the lodge or providing an armed escort, absolutely makes the lodge liable.

IMO the manager was criminally negligent for not making the guests aware of the close proximity of elephant to the lodge, if the lodge was promoted as being DG free.

I have been invited to walk around on an island in Lake Navaisha in Kenya and we were told it was free from any dangerous game. We did and saw lots of waterbuck, and various other antelope. It was fun as they were not hunted and stood around for photographs. I assume there was a risk crocodiles or hippo were present near the water's edge. BUT if I walked into an elephant or buffalo and was injured of course the promoters are liable.

I note that guys like "Jarrod" seem to think Africa is full of animals and dangerous game. Many parts of Africa have next to no game except for maybe some minor buck. Most black Kenyas for example have never seen a live elephant, lion, buffalo etc.

We have been told it is safe to walk around in other parks too, where "no DG was present". As paying customers, the customer has a right to expect this is reasonably the case. I personally would expect leopard to have a chance of being present almost anywhere. But in this case the manager KNEW it was NOT SAFE to jog, or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! As he was aware the elephant were present, yet he INVITED the guests to go jogging!!!

Pleasing to see the case was also conducted in Kenya by a Kenyan court instead of the law suit being launched in the USA or UK by foreign courts as is usually the case.

I too have gone on walks in the African bush unarmed and unescorted. Not in safari areas, nat parks, reserves etc but in country areas along the main highways. Make camp for the night and a short walk up a nearby hill or something. While there was a certain danger factor, which would have been all my own fault, it was rare to see any wildlife at all. The blacks like their bush "nyama".

For hunting clients that never get beyond the safety of their own personal armed escort ie the PH, get picked up at the airport, escorted everywhere, and then re-delivered back to the airport, other than wildlife they never experienced the "real Africa".

Just ask ErikD (Erik Dephin) about Africa from his travels. Travelled through dozens of countries for close to a year, including dangerous game wildlife areas, and even more dangerous two legged dangerous game areas, all without a firearm.

PS ... and I am not a lawyer, nor particularly like them, especially the blood sucking parasites among them. Shakespeare was right ...

What a load of crap. This woman acted stupidly. Plain and simple.

In this life, fools will look for any cover they can find to blame others for their foolishness.

The bartender kept serving me, so it's his fault.

The coffee was really hot, so it's McDonald's fault.

The lodge let me do it, so it's the lodge's fault.

My rifle's instructions didn't state that I shouldn't point it at a human being while pulling the trigger, so it's the gunmaker's fault.

Where in the hell has personal responsibility gone? Where is the duty to think before acting? Why are we so reluctant to blame the stupid for their self-inflicted harms?

Assumption of risk. No reasonable person can possibly think it is safe to jog in any region where dangerous game may, even remotely, be present.

Sorry for being so non-PC, but what a bloody cop-out.

I wonder how big the ivory was?

Let that be a lesson from the Queen. Frumpy blondes simply will never do for a prince, despite one heckuva' rack. Seen that movie!

i think we should not blame the lady she was brave enough to face this besides she was not a pro hunter she and other did was they suppose to do by taking the word of the staff that was their reponsibility,my regards to her

/

I use to jog, but the ice kept spilling from my cocktails.

I think the lodge owner is at fault. Let's describe a different scenario.

Your at a lodge in Alaska. The lodge really doesn't have brown bears in the area but the owner knows there are some. The lodge staff says we are going to go on a nature hike in the morning.

How many of you would say the lodge manager/owner is a moron for sending an unarmed staff member out to lead the hike?

How many of you would expect as a matter of good business practice that at the beginning of the hike that staff member state either

a) you should be aware that there may be bears and I am not bringing a rifle

or

b) I have this rifle with me because there are bears in the area

[For those of you who speculate she would have gone anyway congratulations because you must be clairvoyant]

Another point, what if the person trampled had not been in Africa for four years is the lodge owner now responsible? This is an issuance of contributory negligence.

Another point, your profession is production planning for manufacturing operations so you have knowledge of the typical hazards in factories (substitute for the african bush).

You are invited on a plant tour of a supplier of yours. General industry knowledge would dictate the wearing of safety glasses and a hard hat and you can see overhead conveyors as your enter the plant. The tour guide offers you neither a hard hat or safety glasses and you are seriously injured by an object which that falls from an overhead conveyor puncturing four holes in your body and requiring you to have sixteen operations.

By the way, persons with specific knowledge of that type of conveyor system (substitute that particular area of Kenya) know that items can fall from it.

Are all of you who think she is an idiot going to say...Oh silly me, I know about factory floors and that they can be dangerous and that sometimes things fall off of conveyor systems this was all my fault I should have insisted on wearing a hard hat and safety glasses or not gone on the tour.

Both parties are at fault IMHO.

She had lived in Africa for 4 years. She should have had at least a hint that this was the bush and shit happens in the bush.

When the owners saw elephants around, they should have warned her.

I am an avid runner and have run for close to 35 years. I don't run in the bush in Africa under any circumstance.

I, too, agree with .465 H&H. Its reasonable to expect the lodge having "local knowledge" & for you to accept their judgement...how many of us accept our PH's advice in his arena? I know, I do.
So, its not unreasonable for someone not knowing about any possible danger to accept the lodge's invitation,
the assumption being they would know that its OK.
The responses blaming the woman involved is a lot of chickenshit opinion...she should have sympathy instead.
I never heard such unreasonable baloney.
Ask yourself, if you are hunting dangerous game would you disregard a PH's advice? In the same regard, its
reasonable to trust the judgement of the lodge to go jogging, if they so offer it.
I fault them as the courts did & should have, especially since they knew Elephants were seen near.
The poor woman now suffers all the rest of her life...due Primarily to the bad recommendation & offer to go
jogging in a danger area.
She should have sued for more...I would think her medical costs would be tremendous, and probably still continuing. Hey, the lodge has its responsibility & can't sluff off its responsibilty & in this instance,they
were terribly wrong.
Tom

I say spoiled rich city bitch was lucky anything got stuck in her ...

quote:

Originally posted by shootaway:
She should have been jogging with someone who could shoot the ele in the brain with a first shot out of his well maintained rifle,using the RIGHT bullet,and not a naturalist or someone IMAGINING he is an ADVANCED hunter and deserves a double rifle.

This is possibly the most brilliant dissertation and meaningful post I've seen yet this year. Keep up the good work!!!

Mike:
Elephants don't build faulty conveyor belts. They act like animals.
I promise that you can't warn a Disney-ite enough because Dumbo was made fun of for having big ears and the Disney-ite cried during the movie, so no elephant would hurt such a person who "feels" its pain..

And don't forget that Dumbo was preceded by Bambi. So there you have it.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike_Dettorre:

The lodge staff says we are going to go on a nature hike in the mourning.

Mike, in these cases the mourning usually comes after the nature hike.

Judge,

I was not implying the belt was faulty. I was trying to express that it is an imperfect system and that even when it functions properly things can still fall off.

Certain things in life have risks like walking on to a factory floor but those who control access to that environment have an obligation to warn people of the hazards even if the visitor has general knowledge.

Thes ethings are always on a continuum and are subject to the reasonableness test...I think the folks that are blaming her are on the slippery slope of no requirements for any safety labels on products, no requirment for work place safety regulations becuase hell we should all just know all the dangers.

I got five sentences into this article before deciding that she didn't get what she deserved, but she got what could be expected.

She wasn't jogging in the U. K., she was jogging in Africa. They should have tossed her ass out of court.

I don't care a bit about the rest of her story, or the circumstances surrounding her injury. I hope she receives all the pity she desires, lives a good life, and never goes back to Africa. All she wanted was a T-shirt and ended up with more than she bargained for. Tough luck.

I was taught from a small shaver that anytime you run from a bear you elicit an attack response even if the animal was not intending on attacking you. So do you think it might not be a smart thing to go jogging in a place where they have big cats and things that go snort in the night? It has happened several times over the last few years with mountain lions in our west. The only thing worse than the stupidity of some city people is the deplorable condition of our legal system. In this story the two meet. I am sure her lawyers made off with most of the 800 pounds.

At any given time Lewa Conservancy has elephants, black rhino and any predators that care to come by to take a look. Only an ignorant person could "assume" that there are no dangerous animals on a 45,000 acre wildlife preserve in Africa.

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
I note that guys like "Jarrod" seem to think Africa is full of animals and dangerous game. Many parts of Africa have next to no game except for maybe some minor buck. Most black Kenyas for example have never seen a live elephant, lion, buffalo etc.

Now see there.. Don't go putting words in my mouth. I never once said anything about all of Africa being full of dangerous game around every corner. You just assume so. Of course im sure you know what happens when you assume don't you. When you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME, ASS-U-ME.

Well Jarrod, it seems most of the posters are assuming this woman was stupid, an idiot and a city slicker. Perhaps it is not the woman who is the ass. I will tell you who was the ass, and a big one at that...the lodge owner who thought insurance was for fools. That is the kind of mentality being dealt with here. Not only was he careless to the clientele, he was careless as a businessman. The fault clearly lies where it fell and I am sure this lodge owner pulled every political string he could to save his ass, but sometimes justice does prevail. Could you imagine what those people against her would do if the just gave their son/daughter a new rifle for a 16th birthday and it blew the action in their face, damaging their sight permanently...only to find out the manufacturer knew they had machined the actions out of the wrong steel but figured they were better off to keep it quiet since ONLY A FEW got to the street. I would bet the farm it would be a different story then and if anyone says otherwise...they are full of shit. BTW, if that happened to my family I would have had one more hunt planned...for that worthless chicken shit guide. The reason he was never heard from again is probably because the lodge owner had him fed to the lions...so he can't testify.

I think lots of folks are missing the point. While one can control the strength of a firearm's action, one can not control the behavior of a wild animal. Reviewing the woman's comments indicates to me, at least, that she somehow thought herself protected from the unprotectable. It's like the lie that condums protect from aids... they do... most of the time, but if you are the dude catching the big one... the PC lie doesn't do you any good. Heck, a stingray of all things killed the Croc Hunter.

When you go to where dangerous animals are, "you pays your nickle and you takes your chances."

Every precaution can't keep and elephant from breaking bad and killing someone. Bad stuff happens to folks sometimes and when you go where danger obviously is, you tighten your belt, gird your loins... have a great experience if nothing eats you... and smile on the way to your eternal reward if something does.... because YOU made the decision to get off of asphalt.

This isn't about human mistakes, it is about an elephant that decided to kill folks... at least IMHO.

Yes, one can control the strength of a firearm, but in this case they were negligent and it cost your son/daughter their sight. Same for the lodge owner...he was negligent in passing along the information required so that she could make a rational decision to go out jogging or not. You are right about controlling the behavior of wild animals....the behavior of the lodge owner tells me he was just as much an animal as that elle. Besides, no matter how we choose to pick it apart...the decision was made as to who the guilty party was and that is good enough for me. The fact that it was tried "on location" an not somewhere else...speaks volumes about the outcome. The lodge owner must have had his head up his ass not to carry any insurance...imagine that would you. A multi-million dollar business...and NO insurance. He got what he deserved but she is paying the larger price for it. He will make more money...she will NEVER be the same. God forbid should something like this happen to any of you. Nuff said.