The death of tourist who was trampled to death by a charging elephant “in a matter of seconds” has been recorded as misadventure.<\/p>\n
Janet Taylor Easton, 67, died along with her cousin Alison Taylor, 67, from New Zealand, while on safari in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park on 3 July last year.<\/p>\n
An inquest at Bradford Coroner’s Court had previously been adjourned until a report had been produced from the Zambian Ministry of Tourism.<\/p>\n
Assistant coroner Caroline Chandler said the report had now been received but said “unfortunately it does not add very much” and went on to return a conclusion of death by misadventure<\/p>\n
Ms Easton, also known as Janice, taught chemistry at Titus Salt School in Baildon, Bradford, from September 1983 until retiring in August 2022.<\/p>\n
She then travelled extensively, including trips to New Zealand, Canada and Brazil.<\/p>\n
The inquest was told Easton and her cousin had gone on walking safari holiday to South Luangwa National Park, which had been organised by travel company Expert Africa.<\/p>\n
On the day of her death, the inquest heard she was on a guided walk and the pair had left the camp early to attend a safety briefing.<\/p>\n
Chandler said: “The plan was a guided walk on foot to the Luangwa River where they would cross by canoe and continue on an onward flight to a Bush camp.”<\/p>\n
Warning shot<\/p>\n
The inquest was told the group were accompanied by a guide, also refered to as a scout, and followed by a tracker – a skilled individual who guides tourists through the African wilderness.<\/p>\n
Chandler said the guide spotted a female elephant with a younger, sub-adult elephant, but the animals were in the distance and “appeared peaceful”.<\/p>\n
“The guide adjusted the walk so they were down wind and remained undetected,” she said.<\/p>\n
“What happened next is described as happening in a matter of seconds.<\/p>\n
“The tracker saw the elephant charging from behind and shouted towards the scout who fired a warning shot. The elephant did not stop. The elephant reached the group very quickly and Janice fell.”<\/p>\n
The inquest was told the cause of death was traumatic thoracic injuries and elephant attack.<\/p>\n
Recording her conclusion, Chandler said: “Janice was on a walking safari and went out with all intent and purposes on what she intended to be a lovely excursion that day.<\/p>\n
“She certainly didn’t anticipate that it would end in the way that it very sadly did.”<\/p>\n
Addressing Easton’s brother William Easton, who tended via a video link, she said: “You 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.”<\/p>\n
Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, catch up with the latest episode of Look North<\/a>.<\/p>\n More on this story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of tourist who was trampled to death by a charging elephant “in a matter of seconds”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[171035,171038,171036,171039,4415,171034,90,171033,56,54,55,171040,4407,171037],"class_list":["post-481123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-alison-taylor","tag-bradford-coroner39s-court","tag-caroline-chandler","tag-death-by-misadventure","tag-elephant","tag-janet-taylor-easton","tag-science","tag-south-luangwa-national-park","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-walking-safari","tag-wildlife","tag-william-easton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}