Video: Rampaging elephant kills handler and charges off with Russian tourists during trek An elephant trampled its handler to death and ran off with two Russian tourists - a mother and her 9-year-old daughter - who were riding on it during a trek in southern Thailand. Rescue teams tracked down the male bull elephant and tranquilised it to rescue the tourists clinging to its back. Local police said it took almost three hours for the elephant to be calm enough for handlers to recapture it. The trip was supposed to be a scenic ride to a waterfall for the tourists, but 15 minutes in the animal began attacking the 60-year-old handler, whose body was eventually found crushed in a creek. Police said the elephant had never attacked anyone since it began working for a tourist company two years ago, adding that the animal was in 'musth', a state of aggressive sexual excitement.