Global General

Special

Newsmaker

Asia Pacific

America

Middle East

Europe

Africa

'You hit a what?' SUV nearly slams into elephant on US highway

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-07 15:30

OKLAHOMA CITY: It's not unusual to see a deer or a cow crossing Oklahoma's rural highways. But an elephant?

A couple driving home from church nearly slammed into a giant pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus this week.

"Didn't have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road," driver Bill Carpenter said. "At the very last second I said 'Elephant!'"

Carpenter, 68, said he swerved his SUV at the last second and ended up sideswiping the 29-year-old female elephant.

"Had I hit that elephant, not swerved, it would have knocked it off its legs, and it would have landed right on top of us," he said. "We'd have been history."

The couple weren't injured. But the 2.4-meter, 2,040-kg elephant was being examined for a broken tusk and a leg wound. Handlers from the circus calmed it down, and a local veterinarian cleaned the leg wound and gave the animal some pain killer.

The elephant's tusk punched through the side of the SUV, tearing up sheet metal.

When Carpenter's wife, Deena, flagged some people down and used their cell phone to call police, "The dispatcher didn't believe her: 'You hit a what?'" he said. "I told my wife, I don't know whether to cry or laugh."

AP