The attack was on 68-year-old Richard Root, who was a leading American infectious disease specialist who had travelled to the African country of Botswana in order to help tackle the country’s HIV crisis
A leading American infectious disease specialist who had travelled to the African country of Botswana in order to help tackle the country’s HIV crisis was killed in front of his helpless wife when a massive crocodile pulled him from a canoe and into a river.
68-year-old Richard Root had been invited of behalf of Botswana’s Ministry of Health to work at a hospital in Gaborone, the county’s capital.
Root, who had been the chairman of medicine at the prestigious Yale University, as well as several other major organisations across the States, was tasked with training young doctors and providing care for patients, and had been working in Botswana a matter of weeks when the attack took place.
On a rare weekend off, back in 2006, both he and his wife Rita travelled across the country in order to visit a remote clinic in an area known as Tuli Block, and decided to rent some canoes and explore the famous Limpopo river.
The pair were in separate canoes, and both were accompanied by an experienced guide, although nothing could have prevented what happened next.
According to reports at the time, the attack came out of nowhere, with the guide barely able to shout ‘croc’ before Root was pulled out of his vessel.
In a statement released by a spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania, where Root worked at the time, the attack was over nearly as suddenly as it had begun.
“Root was in a canoe in front and Rita in another one behind him,” she said.
“They just heard one of the guides shout ‘croc’ and then a crocodile appeared, pulled Root out of the canoe and took him straight down under. He was never seen again. It is believed that the crocodile was about 4.5m in length.”
Nobody else was harmed.
Botswana Police Deputy Commissioner Thebeyame Timako later confirmed the doctor’s remains had been found “not far from where the crocodile had pulled him into the river”. His body was recovered four days after the attack.
Timako said there were no known records of similar fatal attacks in that specific area, noting that such incidents were more commonly associated with other local rivers such as the Okavango and Chobe.
Colleagues described Root as being totally driven by a desire to help curb the devastation caused by HIV and Aids in a country where infection rates are among the highest in the world.
“He wanted to help and he had a lot to offer,” one doctor who worked with Jones said. “How could someone who was doing so much good be taken away so tragically? It is so unfair.
“He was always teaching the doctors and encouraging them to stay in Botswana and not to leave for other countries.”
She added simply: “The whole programme is stunned by his death.”
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