Today recreates an elephant stampede from 12 years ago. Given the tourist's billionaire status, and his vivid memories, the following narration will use the first-person "I." Pure entertainment.
Location: Serengeti
When: August 2009
People: Former Oracle executive Tom. Siebel, who founded Siebel Systems, made billions of dollars.
It was supposed to be a short and safe hike, but as a precautionary measure and the usual practice for hiking in all African sanctuaries, my guide set off with a .470 caliber double-barrel rifle that could shoot a dime-sized bullet. And he looked very much like Indiana Jones without a whip, enviable, and instantly secure.
Near a puddle, a 6-ton elephant rushed toward me. And my guide was stunned.
The elephant broke a lot of bones in my body. It was so powerful that the iPhone in my pocket exploded and shattered into more than 200 pieces. But I'm still lucky because I survived. Most people can't survive such a "giant tank" attack. In the year that followed, I underwent 16 surgeries to save my leg.
In August 2009, I was traveling with my wife and two daughters in Tanzania. We spent three days exploring the Serengeti, riding in an open-top Land Rover buggy and seeing many animals including wildebeests, lions, zebras. My family had never been jet lagged back, and it was a little tiring to sit in the car every day, so we decided to take a day off in the camp, and I booked a hike with my guide. I set off at 6:30 a.m. with my guide, who had my Nikon camera and the guide carrying a double-barreled .470 rifle, and he gave me a brief explanation before leaving: "I don't think we're going to have any problems, but you have to remember: if there's an animal coming at us, we have to stand where we are, because if you turn around and run away, the chances of our injuries are high, because the animals will chase what is running away." ”
I remembered.
So we set off. There is an artificial watering hole in front of the hotel camp. In the wide Serengeti, such ponds are few and far apart, so they are very attractive to surrounding animals and migratory animals. We first came across a herd of wild buffalo, large and vile, looking very frightening, so we tiptoed around them and crept around them. About 15 minutes later we met a herd of elephants about 150 meters away.
It was dawn, there was almost no wind, and it was very quiet. We can clearly see about 15 or 16 elephants, half juvenile baby elephants of different ages, and half adult female elephants, who are leisurely grazing and chewing on branches from trees.
Suddenly, a large female elephant turned around and sat on the ground with her nose held high, her ears fully outstretched, yelling in our direction. I wasn't sure what was going on, or if it could see us or smell us, but it was facing our direction. After a pause of about two seconds, it suddenly came straight to it.
Visually, it weighs about 6 tons. Yesterday, I just learned during an animal sightseeing tour that the speed of an elephant running is about 48 kilometers, so it can run these 150 meters in a very short time. About 3 meters in front of me, the guide stood there with his .470 double-barreled rifle.
I know this gun. The 470 rifle can hold a large dose of gunpowder; it's almost the size of a roll of coins. It is also a side-by-side double-barrel rifle that can flip an elephant over its runway.
The elephant was approaching, and the guy didn't shoot. Then 50 meters, the guide did not shoot. This "giant tank" is now only 20 meters away from us, and the guide has not yet fired. In the last 10 meters, he still didn't shoot! This elephant is approaching you like the Destroyer!
Only 3-4 meters away, the guide shot! However, instead of hitting the "Attacking Giant", he fired a shot above its head. The next second, the elephant rushed to his side and tossed him aside with its nose. When he was thrown to my right about 10 meters, I could hear a "poof" in his body, like a balloon leaking, air decompression?!
The elephant didn't stop, it came at me. I stood there, keeping in mind the guide's instructions: don't run, don't run! It was only 2 meters away from me and just stood there. I will remember this moment until the day I die. Countdown begins: three... Two... One! The "giant tank" stood in front of me, and I stood there. I could smell the pungent smell on it.
I could see: a large gray, clump of thorny follicles, gray eyes, a huge torso, white ivory, futon-sized feet. I thought, "Well, what are we going to do now?" Then it went into action.
All of a sudden, he knocked me to the ground with his body and kept rolling me with his nose and feet like a rolling pin to roll out the skin of a dumpling.
Huge tusks ran through my left thigh and then tore down from the side. It stomped on my legs with big feet, kicked my legs, stepped on my ribs, and my shoulders. I tried to hold my head in my arms and clearly felt the blows on my lower limbs one after another, and the pain was so great that I couldn't believe it.
Can you imagine what it's like to have ivory passing through the thighs or a 6-ton animal stepping on the thighs? The pain is unbearable. I had only one thought: "Please, God, let this stop." ”
After a while, I looked up. The dust has settled. The elephant was gone, and the Serengeti was silent. The guide was more than 10 meters away, curled up into a ball, holding a rifle, and pretending to be dead.
Basically, all the services I've received have happened to me. So I said in a voice I could hear, "Now you can reload!" ”
The guide was barely injured, and he got up and called the hotel. Then several pickup trucks and buggies drove up and surrounded me, keeping the animals away. I lay at the scene of the crime for three and a half hours. I was so badly injured that I couldn't move. My left thigh had just been peeled off and separated; my right foot was hanging from my leg, caught only by two tendons and a flap.
Finally, they moved me into a pickup truck with a couple of nurses on it and flew to Nairobi. When you are seriously injured, I assure you that a place like nairobi's Aga Khan Hospital is a miracle. I think they did the best job they could do there. They cleaned my wounds, put a stabilizer on my leg, and then sent us an accompanying nurse, and we flew back to San Jose, California, USA. It was a 20-hour flight and due to some mistake or oversight, they packed me enough morphine and 15 hours of infusion for me. By the time I arrived in San Jose, I had lost two-thirds of my blood. They did a bunch of surgeries and put me in the intensive care unit for days.
A year later, after 16 surgeries, I also had something called an external fixator on my leg to repair, elongate, and reshape the tibia between my ankle and knee. They took a fist-sized bone out of my pelvis and then moved it into my ankle, trying to fuse them together. The prognosis was ok, I will be able to walk, run, bike and play golf in the future.
The iPhone in my left front pocket basically exploded, with about 200+ parts. I always wanted to send it back to Jobs's office for a refund.