One small step …. for an elephant

Many years ago in the Summer of 1989 I shadowed a zoo vet to widen my horizon of treating all kind of animals.

Amongst the animals we treated I remember a snow leopard who broke her leg which we operated on successfully and a young orangutan who we need to entertain as he needed to be temporarily separated due to a possible infectious disease.

But the most vivid memory is of a mature female elephant. She suffered from a small skin laceration on her back right behind her shoulder blades. It is almost the highest point of an elephant and we think she sustained the small injury from being ‘humped’. Elephants might have a thick skin but it is also a very sensitive skin. To prevent infection it was decided that we should apply some antiseptic cream onto the wound. 

She was a calm elephant and her zoo keeper led her into a large room and held her still giving instructions standing in front her head. We fetched a ladder and positioned it agains her. My instructions were to hold the ladder while the zoo vet slowly made his way up to reach the wound. Once he was up her the pulled the cream from his pocket and whilst unscrewing the lid it slipped his hand and landed exactly between the zookeeper and me. We both bent down to pick it up, banged our head, the elephant moved a tiny step forward, the ladder slipped and the vet landed softly on top of the zookeeper and me.

…..and three men in a pile.