ZIMBABWEAN lawyer, Tim Tanser (71), who was attacked by a rhino while game walking with his family at a lodge in KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, has miraculously recovered as little hope was being given that he would survive.
BY MUNESU NYAKUDYA
He told NewsDay Weekender that the healing process had been miraculous and without God’s grace he would have never made it.
“Everybody is amazed. My wife is amazed and a lot of people cannot believe it. It is miraculous. Many people do not survive rhino attacks, but for me, it was extraordinary,” Tanser, who has now been discharged from Netcare The Bay Hospital, said.
Narrating what happened on the fateful day in October, Tanser said they had arranged for a game walk at Hlihluwe/Umfolozi Park with an armed guard named Samora.
“We drove for some distance. He stopped afar and we started to move. Hlihluwe/Umfolozi Game Park is innorthern KwaZulu Natal in Zululand,” he said.
“We had started just heading back to the car after finishing game walking and we were walking down a slide slope towards a small pool of water and next to the pool was a small bush.”
He said Samora suddenly yelled: “Get down!”
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“My son and two grandsons got down at once and I was a little bit behind them — about four metres — and I could not see what the guard had seen. It turned out that they had seen a rhino about 80 metres away,” Tanser said.
Rhinos have very poor eyesight and can only see about 20 metres away although they have a great sense of hearing and smell.
“The next thing I just heard it making a lot of noise when it was moving and between the pool of water and the bush this rhino came and attacked Samora,” Tanser said.
“When you go for a game walk you are told not to run away from the animals because you can never outrun a wild animal so you have got to stay behind the guard because they have experience.”
He added: “Suddenly we had no guide and we had no weapon, as Samora had just been attacked. The next thing the rhino hit me on my leg and it threw me over and then I fell. That is when I broke my ribs and the ribs punched my lungs.”
Before Tanser was taken to hospital and as blood gushed from a wound, his son Frank ripped off his shirt and plugged the wound before the family started praying.
