Elephant Memory
In early February of 1984 a young German man by the name of Dieter Kohlmann was on holiday in Kenya, the trip being a gift from his parents after graduating from college. On the third day of the trip while he and his guide were walking through the bush, they came across a young bull elephant standing alone with one leg raised in the air.
The guide knew immediately the elephant was distressed and kept a safe distance, but the man either through bravery, or stupidity approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot. There was a large thorn deeply embedded in the bottom of the foot.
As carefully and as gently as he could he worked the thorn out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For a good ten minutes the man stood frozen -- thinking of nothing else but being trampled.
Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.
The man never forgot that elephant, or the events of that day. In April of this year, almost twenty two years later, Mr Kohlmann was walking through the Berlin zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to where they were standing at the rail. The large bull elephant stared at them and lifted it's front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times, all the while staring at the two men. Mr Kohlmann couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant.
After a while it trumpeted loudly; then it continued to focus it's stare on him.
He summoned up his courage and against his sons advice, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He then walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.
Amazingly, the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, smashing his skull and killing him.
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Probably wasn't the same elephant.
rats
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