British firefighters faced a challenge of jumbo proportions when they assisted an elephant that had become trapped on its side yesterday.
African elephant Umna collapsed after becoming ill with colic at Howletts Wild Animal Park, near Canterbury, Kent.
As colic is a life-threatening condition for elephants, the park’s keepers desperately sought to get Umna up on her feet and moving again.
They initially tried to shift the 13-year-old by placing ropes around her body to lift her, but the two-tonne animal proved just too heavy.
After a second attempt using a forklift truck failed, staff called in Kent Fire and Rescue Service, who have specialist animal rescue and heavy lifting equipment.
Specially trained firefighters from Faversham, who are more usually called to rescue farm animals, were sent to the scene at 9.30 a.m.
They were later joined by members of the urban search and rescue teams along with a crew from Whitstable.
Faversham watch manager Ian West, who attended the incident, said: “Our team is more used to rescuing cattle and horses, so we explained to the park keeping team how we would like to go about the rescue, based on our expertise.
“They shared their knowledge of the animal and together we came up with a plan to get the elephant to her feet.
“We placed strops around the front of Umna’s body and then used a Tirfor winch to lift her legs into a ‘begging’ position.
“As soon as she was able to manage her own weight, we released the strops and she walked free.
“We are absolutely staggered we managed to rescue Umna and chuffed at the end result. Hopefully this will be a once-in-a-career incident, but it’ll definitely stick in my memory.”
Neil Spooner, animal director at Howletts, said they were also helped by animal transport expert Roy Smith, who by coincidence happened to be at the site for a meeting about moving elephants between parks.
He added: “The joint efforts of Kent Fire and Rescue Service, the elephant keepers and Roy definitely saved the life of this elephant and we are extremely grateful.”