TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT

Tourists in Canoe Charged by Elephant in Wild Footage Speak Out

The group was caught on camera being attacked by a furious elephant mother.

A group of tourists who were chased by an angry elephant while on a canoe safari in Botswana have spoken of the terrifying ordeal. Video footage from earlier this year captured the creature stampeding after the tourist boat and almost capsizing it when they drifted too close to its young. “The first thought that came to my mind was, ‘This is the end of me,’” passenger Jeff Melvin told ABC News. “We kept telling them that they were kind of getting a little annoyed at our presence,” he recalled. “And then just in the blink of an eye, things kind of changed.” Fellow passenger Larry Unrein said the group did not initially see the elephant calves, which were hidden behind a patch of tall grass. After chasing the canoe, the elephant rammed it with its tusks, trampling on a female passenger as she tumbled into the crocodile-infested water. Guides said the woman was lucky to be alive. “I thought for sure I was dead,” Unrein said. “And then once I was safe, it was just jubilation. I was very happy to be alive.”