British Tourist Killed by Elephant

A British tourist has been trampled to death by an elephant, known as Golf, during a trek on the Thai tourist island Koh Samui. The 36 years old man, Gareth Crowe, sat on the back of the elephant with his daughter, Eilidh Hughes, when they were suddenly thrown off.  

He was trampled on and wounded by the elephants tusk on Monday afternoon, 2^nd February this year, according to the Bangkok Post.

Gareth could not get away from the elephant. His daughter and the elephant handler survived, with injuries, but Gareth did unfortunately pass away.

Paiboon Omark, the district manager, said that they suspect that it was because of the hot weather that Golf got mad, and he was not used to his driver.

The BBC’s South Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head, told Good Morning Scotland:

“The elephant appears to have lost his temper when the handler got of it to take pictures of Gareth and Eilidh. He attacked the handler and then threw the tourist of his back.

It was clear that the handler had some trouble to control the elephant. They use a sort of iron spike, it looks rather brutal, they strike his head with it, not usually hard, but at least to let the elephant know what to do.

The handler was struggling a bit with that, so there were signs that something was wrong”.

However, according to witnesses, the handler is said to have hit the Golf several times when he refused to follow his instructions. Before the elephant was rising up and throwing Gareth and his daughter of, the handler is also said to have stabbed him with a tusk. 

The elephant was calmed down after the incident, and are now under control. The British embassy in Bangkok knows about the incident, and offers support for the family.

Eilidh is now in the hospital, and she is ok.

This is not the first time events like this happens in Thailand, an elephant driver was killed by an elephant as late as august last year.

by Sanna Nordkvist