My Unkept Promise.

“I will save you, I promise you will be alright”, but I had a bitter taste in my mouth and a suction feeling in my chest as I whispered this to the newborn elephant.

I received a call at 11 am in the morning saying that a baby elephant was born last night, which was very ill and couldn’t stand up. After a 4-hour drive I got to what was going to be my worst nightmare. We were deep in the forest and it was going to be dark soon, I did a cursory physical exam before taking him to the nearest village:

Dull mentation, shallow and rapid breathing, elevated heart rate, and cold, dry and pale mucous membrane. Umbilicus looks infected and swollen, and front right limb swollen and terribly bruised (probably broken).

The history I managed to get was that the mother had given birth the night before and she had apparently been kicking the baby. He had not fed since being born because he couldn’t stand (around 15 hours ago!). The baby was in hypovolemic and probably septic shock. My prognosis: grave.

At the site of the baby I just wanted to sit there and cry. It was awful to see him like this and imagine how painful and desperate he must have been all these hours. Life should not be this cruel. But there was not any time to spare; we carried him away from the mother as she screamed, kicked, attacked us, and tried to break her chain along with the tree it was attached to. It took 6 people to put the baby on a tack-tack (hand tractor) and transport him to my truck to be able to get him to the village. I asked them to bring the mother as well as newborns should remain with their mothers and I wanted to try to milk her.

On the tak-tak

On our way!

Setting up camp

Once in the village, I set up a camp where I spent the next 13 hours without leaving his site. I did not drink, eat, sleep or shower. NOTHING, absolutely nothing was remotely as important as trying to save possibly this year’s only baby (in my last post I explained how fragile the elephant population in Laos is). The entire village was with me, never left me alone, and constantly helped me with the baby. They all brought carpets and mattresses and surrounded us to keep us warm. 


I had beds, blankets, and a fire to warm the baby up. I managed to get an auricular vein (not easy when your patient is hypothermic and in shock and when the only source of light is a small flashlight and you do not have any catheters) and quickly administered 1 liter of fluid to him before loosing the vein. I disinfected the umbilicus and administered antibiotics and anti-inflammatory. As he had been on lateral recumbency for 12 hours I feared for lung atelectasis and decided to flip him over every hour. I wanted to try and pass an orogastric tube to feed him so the chief of the village brought me the one used for putting gas into vehicles...honestly I could not care less, it was the only thing I had. Unfortunately, it was too short so I could not leave it in; I gave him coconut water (it has electrolytes and sugar) since I still did not have any milk… or the mother.

Getting a vein.

A few hours later the mahout finally arrived.  He did not bring the mother and only managed to milk 200 milliliters of colostrum despite being told to get liters! I did not quite understand why he left the mother in the forest when I was so explicit she should come but at this point I was desperate and felt overwhelmed and helplessness. The gravity of the situation, remoteness and isolation of the mother, and lack of understanding of the mahouts was enough to make me want to shut down and weep. I did not though; I had to be strong for the baby. I told the mahout to go back into the forest and not to come back until he gets 5 liters of milk. I wanted to go myself but getting there would take hours and my place was with the baby.

Around midnight the baby was out of shock and was vocalizing and trying to stand up! When we stood him and supported him he screamed in excitement and began flapping his ears! I was so happy I began to cry. I took a bottle with coconut water and lifted his little trunk; he started to suck as hard as he could… Hope. For the first time I felt hope, but just for a few seconds before he was too tired to continue and stopped. I laid him down and tried to bottle-feed him unsuccessfully. I continued all night like this. I felt desperate, lonely, helplessness, and powerlessness. No one, absolutely no one was there for me but I had to be strong and hold on…. In the end, the mother’s milk never got there and of course, no one survives on coconut water. Further on he developed respiratory noises and was very congested.

At 3:30 am I had some hope.

Please understand this has been the hardest thing I have written in my entire life. This story is very personal; the loss of a life is not easy, but it is made all the much harder when it is a newborn especially one you know you could have saved under different circumstances. Today I feel lost, useless, powerless, overwhelmed, and clueless. I was as fragile as the baby; most of the time I was not sure who was saving whom.

In his last moments of life I had his head on my lap… he looked at me and touched my face full of tears with his weak and flaccid trunk one last time… like it was me who needed the comfort. I hugged and kissed him and remained like this until the brightness left his eyes and life slipped away from him. At the end I could not keep my promise…at the end I did not save him.

Karla Nova
PS: I want to ask to all my veterinarians friends out there to please tell me what else could I have done, what did I do wrong and what could I have done differently. I will really appreciate some input and feedback as I want to learn all I can from my mistakes. I will be forever thankful.