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Swiss man killed by falling giraffe in South Africa

giraffe
The giraffe did not survive the collision. Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

An accident in Kruger National Park involving a giraffe, a minibus and a rental car has resulted in the death of a Swiss man.

The incident occurred on November 10 south of the Mopani area of the park. A taxi bus carrying 13 people collided with a giraffe on the road. The animal then collapsed on top of a rental vehicle driven by a Swiss man. He was seriously injured and had to be airlifted by helicopter after being attended to by paramedics on site. On Wednesday, a representative of South Africa National Parks told News24 External linkthat Swiss man has died in hospital.

His companion and two minibus passengers suffered minor injuries. The giraffe was killed in the collision. 

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Kruger National Park has opened an investigation to determine the exact circumstances of the accident.  

“SANParks continues to warn visitors to the KNP to observe the speed limit and be careful on the roads,” the park tweeted.  

Kruger National Park is one of the largest national parks in the world and covers an area of almost 20,000 km2 – that’s about half of the surface area of Switzerland. Almost 1.9 million tourists visited the park in the 2018 – 2019 period to spot its abundance of wild animals such as elephants, lions, rhinos, leopards, buffaloes and giraffes. 

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