The woman, thought to be a Brit, was part of a tourist group rowing through a delta in Botswana when they were attacked and had to fend for themselves in crocodile-infested waters
Jamie Pyatt News Reporter and Steven White
22:39, 01 Oct 2025
A tourist had a miracle escape after an angry six-tonne bull elephant flipped four people out of two safari canoes then tried to gore the terrified woman to death.
The two couples – both husband and wife and said to be British – were being poled ‘gondala style’ through the shallow waters of the Okavango Delta, Botswana. But their guides took them too close to a female elephant and her two calves leading to the bull of the herd charging through the shallow waters and reeds in a fierce attack.
They then desperately back-poled to try and get away from the trumpeting beast as it closed the gap between them quickly and used its trunk and tusks to flip two canoes over. The tourists on both canoes were tipped into the crocodile-infested waters of the Okavango Delta while their two guides appear to abandon them and run for the safe riverbank.
The angry bull elephant closes in on two of the three canoes in the delta(Image: Faceboook/Namushanawa Nyamba: Conservation National Parks)
The elephant at first appears to have broken off the charge – but a second video shows it changing its mind and returning and attacking one of the female tourists.
It rams the victim with its trunk from behind missing her with both tusks but knocked her underwater and tried to hold the helpless woman down to drown.
The woman is thought to have survived because the elephant lost her under the murky water and was unable to finish her off by stamping on her and stopped trying after 10 seconds.
With his herd passing safely by the terrified tourists the bull considers his job done and turns around and heads off after them leaving the near-drowned lady under water.
She manages to get to her knees and take desperate breaths of air before standing up as her husband wades to her and grabs her hand and guides her to the safety of the bank.
The elephant attack happened on World Tourism Day on Saturday.
A former South African game ranger who was shown the clips said: “They had a very lucky escape indeed because all four could just have easily been killed by that angry bull.
“The woman was lucky not have been gored but if it had held her down for another few seconds it would probably have drowned her so she can praise the Lord he didn’t.
“There are thousands of these dug out traditional Makoro canoes on the Delta poling tourists through the reeds to view elephants, hippo, birds, buck and crocodiles.
“This bull attacked because it was protecting its young and it seems the guides misjudged how close they could take the tourists safely and made a potentially fatal mistake.
“There could well have been the need for four body bags if lady luck had not favoured them. It will certainly give them a story to tell found the fire for many years to come.”
An elephant rampaging at tourists in the water(Image: Faceboook/Namushanawa Nyamba: Conservation National Parks)
Kakwele Sinyina said: “Yo! If the elephant did not get them there are many crocodiles and big hippos there that could have killed them so they had someone looking over them”.
Three companies that run Makoro tourist canoes on the Delta would not comment on who ran the trip but one receptionist said: “It was a group made up of British and Americans visitors.
“There was a lot of expensive camera equipment and phones lost or damaged but it is a blessing nobody was badly hurt but wild animals can be very unpredictable” she said.
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