評論
打印
Background: 十年前，在泰國做木材運輸的一只大象Motola 踏中地雷，被迫截肢，失去了她的左前足。Motola 的不幸遭遇引起了國際社會的同情， 捐款紛紛涌入。現在她已經年滿48歲，值得慶幸的是經過現代醫(yī)學和一家專門設計人工假肢的慈善機構的支持，她的左腳裝上了義肢，終于能再一次腳踏實地了。
【文本】
It was during a break from hauling logs that Motola, foraging for food, stepped on a land mine. A fortnight later, at Lampang elephant hospital, five surgeons and twelve nurses worked for three hours to amputate Motola's front left foot and save her life.
Her fate drew attention to the border region between Thailand and Burma, which is littered with land mines. And the television pictures showing the elephant hobbling on three legs, weeping with pain, had people donating thousands of dollars for her treatment within days.
But it was six years until Motola was well enough to be fitted with her first, provisional artificial limb: a sawdust-filled canvas shoe. Since then, experts at the Prostheses Foundation, a charity that normally produces cheap but efficient prosthetic devices for humans, took a cast of Motola's leg to mould a proper foot for her.
If she is happy with the new, much more stable device, Motola will be able to walk around with a little elephant called Mosha. She was only a baby when she too stepped on a land mine. Her first artificial leg was fitted in 2007. Mosha is doing well and, having outgrown two prosthetic limbs, the three-year-old is now walking around on a third.
