When a wild elephant in China’s Yunnan province became trapped in a pond, the local community banded together to come up with a creative solution to help it out.
The poor thing was found struggling to free itself from the watering hole, but it was having no such luck getting out on its own.
As reported by Inside Edition, there were originally four elephants that fell into the water, but by the time rescuers arrived, three of them had already managed to get back onto dry land.
There are approximately 300 Asian elephants remaining in China, so protecting them is a top priority.
If you’ve ever tried to get out of the pool by placing your hands on the deck and lifting yourself up out of the water, you know that it’s not always so easy.
It’s even harder when you weigh 8 tons and don’t have long, gangly arms to use for leverage.
One of the rescuers grabbed a sledgehammer and started pounding away at the brick wall to let some of the water out of the pond.
It was exactly what the elephant needed to push itself over the edge!
The gentle giant was able to pull itself out of the water and flop back onto solid ground.
Chen Zhiyu, with the Liushun Town Forest Service Center, said that the elephant kept looking back at them, and they believed the animal was expressing its gratitude.
“It gazed at us for about two minutes before leaving.”
The grateful elephant was probably memorizing their faces, so it could return the favor one day.
Elephants getting trapped in watering holes is relatively tame compared to other animals who have gotten themselves stuck in the craziest of places. Take this chubby hedgehog, for example.
Sonic’s German cousin somehow wedged himself between a brick and a hard place, but thankfully it didn’t take very long for rescuers to free him.
The only casualty to the little chap was a bruised ego and the mysterious loss of some gold coins that probably helped someone else level up.
In another example, a supposedly wise owl from Florida apparently didn’t read his flight manual about avoiding oncoming traffic. Unfortunately, the judgment that was passed down for being young and dumb was delivered rather harshly and swiftly.
When this great horned owl got hit by a truck, it went flying through the front grille, where it suddenly found itself stuck behind bars.
It took 300 long miles before the driver even realized he was concealing an accidental inmate.
And then we have a distant relative of Wile E. Coyote, a derpy midwesterner from Illinois who got all tangled up inside the bumper of the car that smashed into him.
Sgt. Bauer of the Whiteside County Sheriff’s Office stated, “In my 20 years of service, I have never seen anything like this.”
Not even the Acme Corporation could have come up with a script that campy! The only thing missing was a cliff and a stick of dynamite.
Thankfully, there are kindhearted people all over the world who are always willing to care for sick, injured, trapped, or otherwise self-imprisoned wildlife.
Watch the video below to see this trapped elephant finally get rescued.
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