KUALA TERENGGANU: Baby elephant Eli, who is recuperating after suffering an amputated right ankle, is showing great signs of recovery.
Thanks to the efforts of her caretakers and a prosthesis expert, the 200kg female calf, aged two, was admired for her determination to ‘stand on her own feet’!
It was a perfect Malaysia Day gift for Eli when University Malaya’s prosthetic, orthotic and rehabilitary services partner BioApps Sdn Bhd made improvements on the prosthetic foot, which it initially designed and fitted her earlier.
And Eli can rest assured for a while, after Exim Bank stepped forward to sponsor the next two sets of artificial limbs for her.
BioApps general manager Wan Nur-Ilyani Wan Abu Bakar said Eli needed to be fitted with a new prosthesis every six to nine months to accommodate her growth.
“Both BioApps and Exim Bank have come forward to help poor Eli with the first three prosthetic legs, as part of our corporate social responsibility.
“We hope other organisations will come forward to sponsor her the future prosthesis, so that she can carry on with her life as comfortably as possible,” said Nur-Ilyani.
Eli was faced with the prospect of being crippled for life when she lost her right foot, from the ankle, after being trapped by poachers in Jeli, Kelantan in November last year.
Nur-Ilyani said villagers had found Eli hobbling with a bloody amputated lower foot, still in a wire snare meant for wild boars.
“They alerted the National Wildlife and Parks Department who initially sent Eli to the Sungai Deka Elephant Sanctuary in Tasik Kenyir, Terengganu.
“In March this year, Eli was transferred to the Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary in Lanchang, Pahang where she was fed Kalminac milk mixed with unrefined brown sugar, to help her foot heal,” she said.
That was when the department then roped in her company, which had a credible track record of undertaking over 1,000 tasks to design prosthetics for victims the past five years.
She said the elephant earned her name from the villagers who found her in Jeli, but pronounced it as ‘Yeli’ in the Kelantanese dialect.
It soon transformed into Eli, and the name got stuck on the animal!
“Our certified ‘Category-One’ prosthetist and orthoptist Reoun Saros from Cambodia, has designed and fitted the right artificial leg on Eli.
“He will work on designing and fitting Eli with future prosthetic feet as the animal grows bigger with age,” she said.
Nur-Ilyani added that Saros had worked in five countries the past eight years.
“He is an expert on prosthetics, especially in his homeland Cambodia which had numerous landmine victims from its civil war,” she said.
Saros, who joined BioApps in April last year, said that Eli sustained an ankle joint disarticulation.
So far, he has handled over 300 cases since 2009 but it was his first involving an animal, let alone an elephant.
Saros said producing a prosthetic for an elephant was the most difficult task he had ever encountered.
“The reaction from the animal is different. It cannot relate its discomfort and agony as it cannot talk.
“Being disabled physically and unable to walk is perhaps one of the most miserable things for it to endure,” said Saros, adding that Eli was a very happy and responsive baby elephant.
BioApps is also involved in designing a RM200,000 ‘bebionic hand’ for schoolgirl Nur Zulaikha Khumaira Zulkifli who will become the country’s first to be fitted with a bionic arm.
Nur Zulaikha 7, had her left arm severed in a horrific motorcycle mishap on July 12, and the prosthetic arm will able her to hold an egg without crushing it.
The SK Tasek Standard one pupil’s arm was severed when an oversized sweater she was wearing became entangled in the back wheel of a motorcycle as she rode pillion with her cousin Noor Aina Hananie Rozali, 18, at Kampung Binjai Bongkok, Marang.
Earlier this year, BioApps provided a prosthesis for a boy who lost his right leg after being struck by a sand lorry in Kuala Terengganu.
Muhammad Naufal Yazid Mohd Salleh, 8, lost his limb in the accident at Kampung Banggol Chempedak in Alor Limbat, Marang on June 20.
Other cases include that for elephants and dogs involved in accidents or illnesses.
