Brave elephant saved my life from the horror of the Boxing Day tsunami (original) (raw)

As the first wave of the Boxing Day tsunami devastated the Phuket shore, baby elephant Ning Nong held strong in the surging water to carry his friend Amber Owen to safety.

Four-year-old Ning Nong had become a trusted companion to eight-year-old Amber during her month-long winter holiday with her parents in Thailand in 2004.

Every day she would hurry to the beach to ride on his back along the shore, and he would wrap his trunk protectively around her shoulders as she fed him bananas.

After celebrating Christmas in paradise with mum Samantha and stepdad Eddie, she couldn’t wait for a Boxing Day adventure on with the four-year-old elephant on the beach in Choeng Thale resort.

In the Sheraton hotel just above the beach that morning the family had felt a small tremor, but thought nothing of it. Then, as Amber took her daily ride on Ning Nong, the tide suddenly receded.

Amber hopes to be reunited with her saviour

No one was prepared for what happened next. Amber saw several local men walking on to the sea bed exposed by the retreating water, picking up the fish left in its wake.

But Ning Nong instinctively knew something was wrong – and his actions during the horror that followed would save her life. Amber, now 20, recalls: “Ning Nong seemed really agitated. He kept turning away from the sea and was anxious.”

As the baby elephant became increasingly stressed, his trainer kept trying to pull him back as he attempted to run away.

“I didn’t really understand what was going on,” says Amber. “All these men were walking where the tide had receded, picking up fish and putting them in their bags.

Amber’s still grateful to the creature who saved her life (

Image:

Gavin Fogg)

“But Ning Nong was swaying and trying to walk up the beach. He didn’t get very far as the trainer kept pulling him back. Seconds later the water crashed, reaching Ning Nong’s shoulders. I clung on to his back, terrified.”

The power of the colossal wave overwhelmed the previously peaceful beach. Holidaymakers lying on the sand were washed away by the wall of water.

All Amber could do was cling to 4ft Ning Nong. Instead of throwing her off he climbed through the swirling current, up the beach and inland with her on his back.

He only stopped when he reached a high wall, about 400ft from the shore, where he wedged himself beside a stone shelf so that Amber could clamber up to safety.

“Ning Nong knew what was going on,” says Amber, from Milton Keynes, who is now fashion company intern.

“I don’t know what would have happened if I wasn’t on Ning Nong’s back.

Ning Nong sensed danger and took Amber to safety

“I was so scared. I could have just been swept away if it wasn’t for him. Despite being so young, it’s a day I will always remember.”

Amber’s mum Samantha, 47, tells of her panic when the first wave hit while Amber was out of sight on the beach.

The company director and her husband Eddie, now 57, were finishing off their breakfast when they heard screams coming from the beach just below their hotel.

She recalls: “We ran down to the sand and I was screaming, ‘Where’s the elephant?’”

Wreckage on the devastated Thailand coast (

Image:

Mirrorpix)

“Someone told me he was dead, and I just panicked. Amber was always with him so I knew she’d be on his back. Finally I saw Ning Nong at the other end of the beach, protected against a wall, with Amber. I was hysterical.

“For the elephant to sense something, run away like that and pop Amber up on a wall is incredible.

“The elephant saved her life.”

Samantha grabbed Amber, who is her only child, and ran back to the hotel, where Eddie waited for them nervously. Just minutes later the next wave smashed into the coast.

“Amber didn’t understand what was going on.

“When I found her, she just said to me: ‘Mum, mum, don’t worry I can swim’.”

While young Amber might not have realised the full extent of the tragedy unfolding around her, Samantha did.

Debris on the beach at Phuket after the tsunami (

Image:

Getty)

Around them trees had been toppled by the waves. And then the wave pulled back – a sign that another was about to crash.

Samantha says: “I was running with water up to my knees and a strong, strapping man got hold of me and dragged me as the first wave pulled back.

“As the second wave came in the pressure was so strong it wiped out all the ground floor rooms of the hotel.

“Thankfully by then Amber was safe on the first floor of the hotel with me and Eddie. I am glad, at only eight years old, she didn’t see the danger that we could see.

“Knowing the horror of what happened around us and knowing what could’ve happened to us was too much. We left two days later.”

The tsunami left a horrific death toll (

Image:

Getty)

Others were not as lucky as Amber that day.

The tsunami measured 19.7ft in the area and swept untold numbers away from the beach. All those who had tried to pick up fish as the wave receded were unlikely to have survived.

While it’s unknown exactly how many people were killed that day in the Phuket region, around 5,400 lives were lost across Thailand. The total death toll across India, Indonesia and Thailand was around 300,000.

Amber and her family have been thankful ever since for Ning Nong’s instinct and bravery which saved her life.

Amber’s remarkable story of survival has now been made into new book and hit show Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo, the man behind stage and film hit Warhorse.

The story has inspired stage show Running Wild (

Image:

Jane Hobson)

Morpugo says he was inspired by Amber’s story of hope in “the midst of overwhelming sadness” – though after reading the report of her story wrongly he made her character a boy called Will.

The former Children’s Laureate says: “I decided to do what I had always wanted to do and write an elephant story.

“I tell anyone that’s listening about the newspaper story I had read about the boy saved from the tsunami by an elephant. But I was mistaken in the detail. It was a girl who was saved, not a boy, and it happened not in Sri Lanka, as I had supposed, but in Thailand.”

The play’s director Dale Rooks decided to alternate the gender of Will to make him schoolgirl Lilly in some productions.

Playwright Michael Morpurgo

Amber will meet Morpugo at a production of his play at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London on Friday.

But she also longs for another meeting – a reunion with Ning Nong, 12 years on.

After her mum grabbed her, she lost sight of the brave elephant, but local news reports suggested he survived.

Amber has kept up with reports on her animal saviour, and recently read he has been renamed Bai Tong and is at the Somnuk Camp in Kanchanaburi, west Thailand. If it is him, he will now be 16.

“I’d like to see if he remembers me,” Amber says. “And I want to go back to the beach.

“Elephants have something special and a strong sense. They know what’s going on before humans do. I thank him for my life.”