Posted on 02/01/2005 8:54:19 AM PST by Hi Heels
Elephant Tramples Circus Worker to Death
42 minutes ago U.S. National - AP
FORT WAYNE, Ind. - An elephant being loaded onto a truck trampled a circus animal trainer to death at Memorial Coliseum, police said.
Three handlers were loading the elephant Monday as crews packed up from this weekend's Shrine Circus, officials said. Two of the workers left the trailer and one man stayed behind to lock the trailer door.
A coliseum employee later saw the man lying inside a semitrailer with the elephants and alerted other handlers, said Victor Hopkins, spokesman for the Allen County Sheriff's Department. The man was taken to a hospital and died a few hours later.
Police said they did not know how many times the elephant stepped on the man, whose name was not released.
The elephants were calm when the other handlers returned to check on the man.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites), which regulates circuses through the Animal Welfare Act, is looking into the incident, USDA spokesman Darby Holladay said.
Representatives of the circus could not be located for comment Tuesday.
Elephants are the largest of all land animals, and depending on the sex and species they could reach 13 feet in height and weigh up to 6.5 tons, according to the Humane Society of the United States' Web site.
Captive elephants from 1990 to 2003 killed 65 people and injured 130, according to Circuses.com.
Was he dressed as a peanut?
/Mary Tyler Moore Show
Slow animal trainers.
........................another (evolutionist/PETA) animal 'hate' crime?
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighting Troops
It only takes one good tramp from an elephant.
It only takes one good tramp from an elephant.
How do you tell the difference between a grape and an elephant? Grapes are purple.
What did Jane say when she saw the elephants coming down the hill? Here come the grapes. She's colorblind.
The elephant or the trampled....tramplee...um...victim?
Rode some Elephants through the jungle in Thailand and I'd HATE to be stepped on by one. Pissing one off would be like spitting in the face of a mountain gorilla. Chances are, it'll leave a scar or two!
Yipes, why all the jokes over this story? Someone died didn't they? It's sad not funny.
I hope they don't kill the elephant now.....
...Only after learning they were all cemocRATS and endorsed the JACKASS as their party's mascot.
Don't Tease the Elephants Ping List?
My old English teacher always used to say, "Humor is tragedy viewed from afar."
I don't know. If someone I knew was trampled by an elephant, my sympathy certainly wouldn't be to the elephant.....
I thought it was a RINO!
LOL!
An animal that size could kill a man without even being aware of it. You don't even get in a trailer with a horse without an escape route.
PETA version of the headline:
Pachydermo-American Lashes Out Against Human Oppressor!
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighting Soldiers
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