An Australian tourist has been crushed to death by a Thai elephant he was trying to feed during a holiday show at Mae Rim, near the northern border with Burma.
William Parks, 57, of New South Wales, was watching a show of log-rolling and elephant hijinks with his wife when he offered bananas to an elephant standing on its own. The elephant knocked Parks to the ground with its trunk and stamped on his head, according to a consular official at the Australian Embassy.
He was pronounced dead on arrival at a Chiang Mai hospital.
A witness told Thai television the accident happened quickly. 'There was a cry when a farang [Caucasian] fell over and the elephant did something bad. No one expected it,' said the Thai tourist.
The organiser had never heard of such an accident happening to a tourist before.
But rogue elephants had killed seven Thai villagers in northern Thailand over the past two months, he added.