New Delhi: The veterinarians and the staffers of a national park in Thailand carried out a dramatic rescue after a baby elephant and then its mother fell into a roadside manhole. The rescue operation, the video of which has gone viral on the social media, shows the veterinarians using a number of tools, including a boom lift to pull out the calf, before sedating its mother to carry out the rest of the operation.
According to reports, the rescue operation, that took place amid pouring rain at central Thailand's Khao Yai National Park on early hours of Wednesday, involved the use of a boom lift, a digger and the resuscitation of the unconscious mother elephant by three people.
According to a report by The Guardian, after the one-year-old elephant fell into a roadside drain, its mother stood guard initially but shortly after she was sedated, she fell in, the national park staffers said.
The rescuers used a truck-mounted boom lift to pull out the mother elephant before climbing on top of her to perform simultaneous cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Once rescued, the calf began suckling its mother, who soon regained consciousness and both returned to the wild immediately.
Notably, the team took over three hours to carry out the operation successfully.
“It was impossible to get near the baby while the mother was nearby so we gave her three doses of tranquillisers but she moved towards her baby before passing out and hit her head,” Sky News quoted Dr Chananya Kanchanasarak, Khao Yai national park Department vet, as saying.
“It was one of the most memorable rescues we’ve done,” the vet further added.