/ 10 February 2000

MAN GORED BY BUFFALO

A MAN was gored by a buffalo while walking through a sugar cane field near Hectorspruit on the southern border of the Kruger National Park this week. Pat Sambo, 28, of Dindela township, said from his bed at Shongwe Hospital on Thursday that he was on his way to visit his brother, who works for the TSB sugar mill in the area, when he stumbled across the buffalo on a footpath. “It ran at me and I tried to hide behind some trees. He chased me around a tree,” said Sambo. The buffalo hooked Sambo in his buttocks and tossed him up into the trees. “He tried to hang me in those trees,” says Sambo, who is unable to walk as yet. “I lost my ID, R20 and my purse.” When Sambo fell to the ground, he pretended to be dead until the buffalo left. He managed to crawl to the small Impala railway station where he was helped.