10 Years After Losing A Leg From A Landmine Explosion, This Elephant Is Finally Getting A Prosthetic Leg!

When a baby elephant lost one leg due to a landmine explosion, her carers never thought that she would be able to walk naturally again. Thankfully, somebody stepped in to give this poor elephant a chance to experience how to walk again, and probably even saved her life.

An elephant named “Mosha” was only 7 months old when she accidentally stepped on a land mine near Thailand’s border with Myanmar. The doctors were able to save her life. Unfortunately, she lost a front leg. This happened a decade ago.

Elephants are huge. Their legs are very important for their balance as this carries their weight. And for Mosha, having only three is taking a toll on her health. She started growing and carers knew that she would not be able to survive if she continues to live with only three legs. But thankfully, this didn’t last for long because a prosthetic expert stepped in to help.

In 2016, Mosha received her ninth artificial leg, thanks to the ‘Friends of the Asian Elephant Foundation’ hospital in northern Thailand and Dr. Therdchai Jivacate, a Thai orthopedist who made all this possible. The doctor is an expert in creating and designing prosthetic legs both for humans and small animals. However, this is going to be the first time for him to make one for an elephant. But the doctor is up for the challenge.

When Mosha received her new prosthesis Dr. Jivacate told Reuters: “The way she walked was unbalanced, and her spine was going to bend. That means she would have hurt her cartilages badly and eventually stopped walking. And she would have died because of that.”

When Mosha was injured, she weighed about 1,300 pounds. And now, she weighs even more. Her rapid growth required her to have frequent upgrades of her artificial leg. Thankfully, Dr. Therdchai Jivacate did not get tired of making new ones for Mosha. And every upgrade of her prosthetic leg, the orthopedist made sure that it’s better than the last one.

Mosha is just one of more than a dozen elephants who have been wounded by land mines in the border region. These landmines were in place when the rebels have been fighting the Myanmar government for decades. But Mosha was the first elephant to be fitted with a prosthetic limb at the hospital near Lampang.

Since the prosthetic leg for Mosha was a success, another resident of the hospital also became a recipient.

Motala also lost a front leg to a land mine in the same border area back in 1999. She is now more than 50 years old. Many professionals took part in the operation, including Dr. Therdchai Jivacate. According to him, the elephants that don’t receive prosthetic legs are destined to die. A 2012 documentary called “The Eyes of Thailand” featured her being fitted with an artificial limb.

According to Halo, an international organization dedicated to removing the land mines, these areas are home to about 25,000 people who have also been maimed by land mines.

The Thai Elephant Conservation Center estimates that there are about 2,000 to 3,000 elephants that live in the wild in Thailand, along with other 2,700 domesticated individuals. And since 1979, about 64,000 land mine accidents have occurred in the border regions of Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia.