An African elephant smacked a girl in the face with its trunk while she was taking a photo of the animal at a wildlife park in Zambia.
A video posted on Twitter shows two girls briefly petting the elephant’s extended trunk before the animal quickly strikes a third girl in the face, knocking her cell phone out of her hands. The elephant then tries to grab the cell phone with its trunk before the man shooting the video picks it up.
The video has garnered 10.7 million views since being posted on June 28.
When in Zambia….don’t stand too close!!#phoneenvy #elephants #MissionZ2019 #viralvideo pic.twitter.com/HybhmYe6Vn
— Ernie Ley (@FritoCorn1) June 28, 2019
“I felt like 10 people had punched me at once as I was catapulted backward and my phone flew forward to the ground,” the Pennsylvania girl wrote in a letter to Fox News. “Yes, I had the wind knocked out of me, no it didn’t hurt, yes I’m okay, and yes I still love elephants!”
She was on a 12-day mission with her school, the broadcaster reported. The unnamed girl is a student at Grace Prep in State College in Pennsylvania. The man who posted the video to Twitter is the principle of the college, according to his Twitter bio.
They had just arrived in Zambia after a 30-hour flight.
“So that evening we planned on taking a nice walk to dinner but before we did, we saw the beautiful elephant perched on the edge of its evening enclosement. (This was a female elephant that has the freedom to roam in its 10,000-acre reserve all day and voluntarily returns each night for a meal and a bath.),”
“One of the best parts is that it was all captured on video so everyone, knowing I was okay, could get a good laugh out of it,” the girl told Fox News.
In Africa, elephants can be found across 37 countries. Africa holds two different species of elephants, the African savannah elephant, and the African forest elephant, according to Elephants for Africa.
An elephant’s trunk is a fusion between its upper lip and its nose. The trunk alone can weigh up to 310 pounds and can hold up over three gallons of water. Elephants can use their trunks both for aggressiveness and affection, and to pick up objects.
Another Elephant Attack
Last month, an animal trainer was seriously injured after an elephant attacked him at a wildlife park in Canada, reported CBC.
The park employee had to be air-lifted to the hospital. The circumstances around the incident have not been revealed, according to the news outlet.
The African Lion Safari in Ontario holds 16 Asian elephants, the largest herd of any North American zoo.
Hamilton Police have responded to a call at African Lion Safari in #HamOnt after a trainer was attacked by an elephant. The patient has been airlifted to hospital. The Ministry of Labour has been contacted.
— Hamilton Police (@HamiltonPolice) June 21, 2019
That’s not the first time an elephant hurt an employee at the park. In 1989, a 21-year-old man was killed by an elephant at the African Lion Safari. He was crushed when the elephant leaned its head on him after knocking him to the ground.
The elephant was fighting with another elephant when Omer Norton tried to grab a tool to break up the fight, CBC reported. The park said it was the first time an elephant had shown aggression towards a human there.
