BEAST UNBURDENED

His Mom Was Killed by an Elephant. But He Doesn’t Blame the Animal

“The elephant was being an elephant,” Blake Vetter said, adding that his mom knew the risks of the trip.

Blake Vetter lost his mother in a horrifying accident on Saturday, when an angry elephant charged and violently flipped the safari car she was traveling in. But Vetter isn’t angry with the animal, nor with the safari driver who stopped the car in Zambia’s Kafue National Park. “The elephant was being an elephant,” Vetter told the Daily Mail. “My mom would be the first to defend the driver and the elephant,” he said, adding that she knew the risks of the trip. Video of the tragedy shows the safari driver stopped the vehicle and began hollering as the angry elephant approached the passengers, a move observers criticized as reckless and dangerous. Vetter disagreed—he thinks the driver actually prevented further loss of life by acting the way he did. “The driver stopped because if he kept going they were gonna get injured, he was very professional—when he hollered at the elephant, most times they do run away,” he said. “He probably saved lives by stopping.” Vetter’s mother, Gail Mattson, was the only person killed in the attack.