In a horrific incident, an American tourist from New Mexico was killed by an elephant in Zambia when it attacked her vehicle during a safari drive on Wednesday. The elephant pulled 64-year-old Juliana Glay Tourneau out of the vehicle and trampled her, officials said. Metro According to reports, the incident occurred near the Maramba Cultural Bridge in Livingstone when the group had stopped because a herd of elephants was blocking traffic.
He was rushed to a clinic in the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, where he was pronounced dead. According to the police statement, his injuries included deep wounds to his right shoulder and forehead, a fracture of his left ankle and a small sunken wound to his chest.
Southern Province Police Commissioner Oxensio Daka told the Zambian station that Ms Tourneau died at about 5.50pm “after falling from a parked vehicle due to elephants blocking traffic around the Maramba Cultural Bridge”. ZNBC on Friday.
Officials did not say whether anyone else was injured or what caused the elephant to become aggressive.
This tragic incident is the second fatal elephant attack on an American tourist in Zambia this year. In March, 79-year-old Minnesota woman Gail Mattson was killed in a similar incident during a game drive in Zambia’s Kafue National Park. She was killed and five others were injured when an elephant attacked and overturned a truck.
In response to these incidents, Zambian authorities have urged tourists to exercise extreme caution when viewing wildlife. Similar concerns have been raised in neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe and Botswana, where elephant populations have increased and fatal attacks have been reported in recent years.
According to experts, human deaths in encounters with elephants are rare. “This is a freak accident. It’s probably a coming together of unfortunate circumstances that led to this,” Nikhil Advani, senior director at the World Wildlife Fund, a nonprofit that works on environmental protection and conservation efforts, told the New York Times.
