{"id":336256,"date":"2026-03-18T20:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T20:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/336256\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T20:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T20:49:09","slug":"new-zealand-tourist-trampled-by-elephant-on-zambia-walking-safari-died-by-misadventure-coroner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/336256\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand tourist trampled by elephant on Zambia walking safari died by misadventure – coroner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The court heard the pair were on a walking safari organised by travel company Expert Africa and had set out early for a guided walk towards the Luangwa River.<\/p>\n

They were accompanied by a guide and a tracker when a female elephant and a younger animal were spotted in the distance and initially appeared calm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guide adjusted the walk so they were downwind and remained undetected,\u201d Chandler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened next is described as happening in a matter of seconds.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe two women were killed by an elephant while on safari last year. Photo \/ 123RF<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tracker saw the elephant charging from behind and shouted towards the scout, who fired a warning shot. The elephant did not stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

The elephant reached the group quickly and Easton fell. <\/p>\n

She died from traumatic chest injuries caused by the attack.<\/p>\n

Chandler spoke to Easton\u2019s brother, William, who attended the hearing by video link, saying: \u201cYou still have a lot of unanswered questions and I hope you get to the bottom of those so you and the rest of the family can have some closure\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alison Taylor\u2019s neighbour, who did not want to be named, previously described her as an \u201camazing, amazing woman\u201d, noting she had travelled many places, including Antarctica and Africa.<\/p>\n

At the time of the deaths, Eastern Province police commissioner Robertson Mweemba spoke to the Zambia Daily Mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two female tourists, while taking a safari walk<\/a> to a crossing point at Luangwa river, spotted an elephant with a calf at a distance and diverted for about 50 metres away, but within a few minutes after diverting, [the armed officer] who is usually behind, saw the elephant charging at them,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe shouted, \u2018Elephant\u2019. As they turned to see, they saw it charging at a high speed and, due to the fact that Alison Jean Taylor had a leg problem, she was caught first and, while the wildlife police officer fired warning shots, Janet Taylor was caught as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sisters had been moving between camps when they died. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The court heard the pair were on a walking safari organised by travel company Expert Africa and had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14801,3595,38143,12629,58250,634,6179,5732,1874,13999,3302,180154,117,111,43,139,69,90,188,52087,17489,180153,4770,3608,6123,5507,80],"class_list":["post-336256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-british","tag-by","tag-charging","tag-coroner","tag-cousin","tag-death","tag-died","tag-elephant","tag-found","tag-inquest","tag-matter","tag-misadventure","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-safari","tag-seconds","tag-tourist","tag-trampled","tag-walking","tag-were","tag-while","tag-zambia","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}