The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust pilot who was seen in a viral clip rescuing a lorry driver trapped by floodwaters along the Galana-Kulalu causeway on Wednesday night has described his heroic act of saving the driver’s life as dangerous.
Speaking exclusively to the Nation from the Trust’s elephant nursery in Nairobi, Taru Carr-Hartley said he had to balance between hovering closely above the truck and supporting his younger brother, Roan Carr-Hartley, who at one point was hanging under the helicopter and on top of the truck as he helped the driver, James Rufus Kinyua, into the helicopter.
Roan was strapped into a harness attached to the helicopter and his older brother knew that a slight change in the distance between the helicopter and the truck would have caused a double tragedyKinyua was driving his fuel truck from the Galana National Irrigation Board (NIB), where he had picked up fuel, when on his way back he encountered flooding caused by recent rains upstream.
“His lorry had been pushed sideways by the rising water and two of its wheels had come off the concrete embankment, wedging it in the middle. Help was called for and a tractor from NIB arrived, but by the time it arrived to pull the truck from where it was wedged, the water was still rising and had pushed the truck further sideways and into deeper water,” recalls Tarus.