Injured giant battling for life with swollen tongue sympathetically treated by wildlife officers

Officers from Department of Wildlife Conservation are providing treatment to a wild elephant found lying in a critical condition on the forest border with a swollen tongue. A closer look showed that the elephant’s mouth has been slightly shattered indicating that he has been injured with jaw exploding trap. Luckily the elephant’s mouth has not been severely shattered with the explosive. However due to the effect of this mouth bomb elephant’s tongue has been injured and it has been severely infected worsening the situation. Poor elephant must have been suffering from infection from long time and it might have impaired the food intake. The veterinary surgeon believed that elephant has been collapsed due to lack of energy in the body caused by prolonged starvation. The veterinary surgeon and the team quickly leapt in to action. They realized that it is urgent to boost the elephant. Otherwise the elephant would die lacking the energy in the body. So they hurriedly started the saline treatment The IV line is connected to the ear vein. Therefore the ear area was thoroughly cleaned to avoid further infection through the injection site. Saline treatment would be helpful to replenish the lost energy of the elephant. The injury was caused by an improvised explosive device hidden in fodder bait used by villagers to hunt animals. These devices are a combination of gunpowder and fragments of metal or rock packed tightly together. When bitten into or crushed inside an animal’s mouth, they explode, shattering the jaw and destroying the tongue and other soft tissue. Explosive devices concealed in bait for bush meat hunting have overtaken gunshot injuries as the primary cause of elephant deaths in asia. These devices are aimed primarily at wild boar, but are increasingly maiming and killing elephants. While giving the saline treatment, antibiotics were administered intra muscularly. These antibiotics are primarily aimed to heal the infection. The antibiotics will boost the immunity to heal the infection in the tongue. Infection should be avoided from spreading in to the inner body parts.Multivitamins and anti-inflammatory medicines were also administered. After giving saline for 5 hours officers attempted to make the elephant stand. But the elephant hasn’t completely recovered the lost energy. So they decided to continue the treatment from the next day morning. The veterinary surgeon said that they would continuously treat and monitor the elephant’s condition for 5 days. Then after, if the elephant wouldn’t recover even after five days the elephant should be brought to the elephant rehabilitation center run by the department of wildlife conservation