(HorizonPost.com) – The UK Guardian interviewed a clinical psychologist who, in 2002, was crushed by an elephant while on holiday in Thailand.
At 24, Gemma Jones took a 15-month holiday in Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand with two friends. While in Thailand, she and her friends were taking a trek through the jungle on elephants when the one she was riding bolted after the mahout, one of the elephant keepers.
Jones said as the elephant chased after the mahout, she and her friend held on for dear life. Eventually, the animal either stumbled or deliberately threw them off its back, and Jones and her friend Yvette ended up on the ground near the charging elephant.
While Yvette was able to scramble to safety, Jones was trapped with the elephant towering over her. The animal wrapped its trunk around her, picked her up, and threw her several times.
Finally, the elephant got down on the ground beside Jones and rolled over her from side to side.
She told the Guardian she felt her bones, ribs, pelvis, and collarbone, all break at once. The only thing that saved her life, Jones said, was that the ground beneath her was soft.
Jones waited for the beast to crush her skull, but it didn’t happen. Instead, the elephant was gone and she could feel the sun on her face again. There beside her was the mahout. He got her to her feet and helped her to a fence near some huts where he laid her down on an outside table. By this time, the rest of the tour group arrived in a pickup truck.
She was driven more than an hour to a hospital in Chiang Mai where it was revealed that she suffered a broken collarbone, three fractured ribs, internal bleeding, and a broken pelvis.
While she required no surgery, Jones remained hospitalized for ten days.
Once discharged, Jones stayed with her parents who flew to Thailand to be with her while she underwent a week of rehab. Read her full account HERE.
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