Flung 12 feet in the air by elephant, boy survives
30 June, 2008
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Flung 12 feet in the air by elephant, boy survives
(from The Telegraph)
Jaigaon, June 30:
When Rajkumar Asur darted across the football field this afternoon, his bounceback was no less dramatic than the Spaniards’ after 44 years at Vienna last night.
The boy from Jalpaiguri did not lift the Euro cup like the men from Madrid on Sunday. An elephant lifted him, curling its trunk around the 10-year-old’s waist, and flung him 12 feet into the air.
But the lad lived — to tell the tale and return to the playground as usual this afternoon, a sprained wrist and minor bruises bearing testimony to the brush with near-death the night before.
A pile of sand on which Rajkumar landed probably saved him, a providential cushion not everyone is blessed with when elephant herds march through the labour colonies of north Bengal’s tea gardens foraging for food.
Rajkumar may be only 10 years old, but he knows that being shaken awake in the dead of night means a herd is on the march. Last night at 11pm, when his sister woke him up, the herd had entered Carron tea garden, 65km from here, and started tearing down walls of the tin-roofed houses.
Rajkumar hid in the kitchen — a mistake when the herd is looking for food. “It was dark and I could hear the herd trumpeting and breaking down walls, I was scared and cowering against the wall when a portion of it came crashing down. Suddenly, I felt something grip me by the waist and the next moment I was flying through the air.”
“I fell with a thud and was lost in the dark, I could still hear the elephants and I ran into bushes and hid,” the boy said today.
Rajkumar cowered in the darkness for two hours before the herd moved away. “I heard my sisters calling out to me and then only I dared to venture out,” he said.
The doctor attached to the garden, S. Debnath, said the boy suffered a slight sprain on his left wrist and minor bruises. “It is a miracle that he got off so lightly, he fell on a heap of sand that broke the severity of the impact,” Debnath said.
Calcutta-based elephant expert Dhritikanta Lahiri Chowdhury said Rajkumar was indeed lucky. “Elephants do not distinguish between adults and children. The boy survived because of the soft landing.” A grown elephant can lift objects as heavy as 700kg and hurl them.
Gram panchayat member Kartik Oraon said this was the largest herd, numbering over 25, to have entered the garden in his memory. “They came out of the Diana forest two kilometres away and crossed the Chupatang stream to enter the labour colony. They completely destroyed two pucca structures and ate all the vegetables, flour, rice and salt they could find before leaving,” he said.
Asked whether the incident would haunt the boy, Debnath said the memory of the brief but deadly ordeal was bound to haunt him for some time.
Rajkumar, however, was back playing football in the field near the labour colony this afternoon. “I was terrified and I will sleep with fear tonight, but why should I stay indoors and not play with my friends like every other day?” he asked.
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