May 2, 2012
‘Being light’ can be dangerous
By Julie Daubé
“It was literally a battleground that day,” says Richard Herring, regional director for the C&MA’s Asia and Pacific region. “There’s no question in my mind that it was a spiritual attack. I knew it from the moment the elephant hit me—I knew it before I hit the ground, when I was still flying through the air.”
On November 4, 2009, during a visit to a crocodile and elephant park with participants of an Asia and Pacific Regional Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Richard Herring and Pieter Theron, who was then serving as the Mongolia field director, were seriously injured when an elephant attacked them while they posed for pictures. The animal flung the two men more than 10 feet into the air and onto the pavement. Richard suffered a shattered hip and broken pelvis; Pieter, who landed on his head, sustained a fractured skull and other injuries. Both men required an extensive recovery period beyond the weeks they spent in the hospital.
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