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Current mood:  thoughtful Category: Religion and Philosophy
On the 16th August 1996 a three year old boy climbed over a wall at the Brookfield Zoo, Brookfield, Illinois and fell into the gorilla enclosure. At first nobody notice; his father was busy laughing at the chimpanzees and his mother was busy scraping goat shit off her shoe acquired at the petting zoo that they had just left. Somebody shouted, 'Oh my God, there's a young boy in the gorilla enclosure.' Both the young boy's parents spun around and scanned the gathering crowd for their son. They forced their way through the crowd asking people to move and starting to panic. They looked over the wall and saw their son lying unconscious on a rock and both screamed. Zookeepers had come to see what all the commotion was about and moved to the front; looking down they saw the boy and immediately radioed for help. Another shriek went up from the crowd as a female Western Lowland gorilla appeared and started to move towards the unconscious boy. The keepers looked at each other not knowing what to do, worried about what a large gorilla could do to a small boy. The gorilla moved closer to the boy and suddenly stopped, watching the child breathe. She moved to the boys side as the crowd screamed trying to create any kind of noise to scare the gorilla away, 'Oh sweet God no, you leave him alone beast.' Another gorilla appeared and moved towards the boy, but the first turned quickly and growled at it until it backed off. The gorilla then very carefully picked up the young boy in her arms and cradled him. The boy's mother was beside herself with fear, but the father had stopped making any sound and watched the gorilla carefully. 'No,' he whispered, 'no, wait. It's helping him. IT'S HELPING HIM, LOOK.' The great beast slowly moved across the enclosure to the access entrance and lay the boy gently down on the ground and backed away. The female gorilla's own baby was holding on to the mother the whole time. Zookeepers rushed in and collected the boy, and he and his family were rushed to hospital. The crowd watched on in silence until someone started to clap slowly. Looking around at each other, the rest of the people that had gathered started to do the same until there were cheers and shouts. The gorilla looked up at the people and slowly moved into the undergrowth with its child. After four days in hospital the boy and his family returned home. That gorilla's name was Binti Jua.
We could all learn a thing or two from that majestic beast.
- Kieran
11:59 AM
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