‘Chips saved my life!’ Moment elephant smashes Australian tourists’ car window in search of food, before quick-thinking father throws fries to distract him and enable their escape
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This is the shocking moment a huge elephant pounced on an Australian family’s van and smashed through their window in search of food during their holiday in Sri Lanka.
Video shows the female elephant named Nitra emerging from the trees in Yala National Park in southeastern Sri Lanka and making a beeline for the one they had rented from Kasun Basnayake and his family.
The driver desperately tries to reverse the car away from Nitra, but she uses her fang to smash through the van’s window before using her trunk to search the inside of the vehicle for food.
But a quick-thinking Kasun threw his son’s chips out the window to distract the elephant. And indeed, the hungry elephant quickly gets out of the vehicle to feast on the food.
The driver quickly puts the car in first gear and speeds away from the elephant – but not before it smashes its head into the side of the van.
Video shows the female elephant emerging from the trees in Yala National Park in southeastern Sri Lanka and making a bee line for the one they had rented from Kasun Basnayake and his family
The driver desperately tries to reverse the car away from Nitra, but she uses her fang to smash through the van’s window before using her trunk to search the inside of the vehicle for food.
Kasun, from Perth, Western Australia, told the BBC: ‘He started sniffing around our feet for food and the driver said we had to give him everything we had, so I gave him my son’s leftover sandwich.
‘He told me to throw the rest out the window so I did and the driver then managed to drive away.
“Those sandwiches and fries probably saved our lives.”
No one was injured in the incident which took place on Monday’s Culp Temple Road in Yala National Park.
The family was on their way to the Situlpauwa Temple, which is popular with tourists, when they were ambushed by the elephant.
The driver desperately tries to reverse the car away from Nitra, but she uses her fang to smash through the van’s window before using her trunk to search the inside of the vehicle for food.
But a quick-thinking Kasun threw his son’s chips out the window to distract the elephant. And indeed, the hungry elephant quickly gets out of the vehicle to feast on the food
The driver quickly puts the car in first gear and speeds away from the elephant – but not before it smashes its head into the side of the van
The Culp Temple road is reportedly a key spot that elephants use to ambush wide-eyed tourists and steal their food.
The Yala National Park has a protected area of almost 130,000 hectares of land, consisting of forests, grasslands and lagoons.
The park is home to animals such as elephants, leopards, sloths, jackals and crocodiles.