Adelaide woman Tamika Morrison tells of how she survived a buffalo attack in Cambodia

By Andrew Dowdell 

July 15, 2012 

Adelaide Now, Australia

A close-up of Tamika Morrison's scar from the buffalo attack. Picture supplied.

Tamika Morrison recovers in her hotel room in Phnom Penh after she was attacked by a buffalo. Picture: Supplied 

 

CHEATING death by the twist of a horn, an Adelaide woman has told of her fight for survival after being gored by a water buffalo on a Cambodian beach.

Professional photographer Tamika Morrison's keen eye for a shot almost proved fatal when she approached the water buffalo to snap some pictures, while on the remote Koh Rong island off the west coast of the Cambodian mainland.

"I was probably a metre and a half from the buffalo. I sort of thought to myself `gee these horns look huge', then next thing I know it stuck its horns right into me just below my chest in the stomach area and flipped me into the air backwards," Ms Morrison, 23, told the Sunday Mail as she recuperated in a Phnom Penh hotel 15 days after the attack.

"I landed on my back and looked back up at the thing. It looked at me as if it was going to charge again so the adrenaline was pumping and I got up and ran for my life back down the beach with blood gushing out of my stomach."

Fortunately the buffalo's horn narrowly missed piercing Ms Morrison's heart and penetrated into her stomach region.

So lucky: Tamika Morrison in a Phnom Penh hospital, top left. The terrifying stomach wound, centre. Recovering in a Cambodian hotel with her dad, above. Nurses assist her before her discharge, below. The idyllic beach where the attack occurred, left.

"If the horn had gone up instead of down I would have died, it was really close to my heart," she said.

Circled by startled fellow backpackers as she lay bleeding on the idyllic beach, the Hallett Cove resident said she was overcome by a strange sense of calm.

"One of the first things I thought was `oh, my God, I don't want to die' and I looked over to the ocean and there was a really strong comforting feeling came over me that I was going to be OK," she said.

Ms Morrison endured an agonising 45-minute speedboat ride back to the mainland, where she was treated by doctors then sent on to Phnom Penh hospital, where she eventually arrived eight hours after being injured.

Scans quickly revealed the severity of the injuries and Ms Morrison underwent emergency surgery which saved her life.

"The horn went near my pancreas into my stomach and intestines, through my abdomen. I had to get my spleen removed and I had internal bleeding in my lungs and my abdomen," she said.

"When I woke up in hospital I had a machine breathing for me and I had about five different tubes coming out of me, which made me realise how serious it was."

Ms Morrison spent more than a week in hospital accompanied by "an angel of a friend" Angelika, who she met backpacking, while her father Bruce flew to Cambodia to be at her side. Mr Morrison said he was in shock when first told of the bizarre attack as he enjoyed a beer with mates at a Adelaide hotel on June 30.

After a delay in organising flights, Mr Morrison arrived in Cambodia on Tuesday after his daughter had been discharged from hospital. "I could finally hug her, it was a relief to see her, she was damaged but alive," Mr Morrison said.

Recalling her brush with death, Ms Morrison said the water buffalo was the only mode of transport for the remote island's residents and she had not anticipated its attack.

"I had seen one of the Cambodian islanders walking around with him on a rope, so I didn't think it was a wild buffalo and that it might attack me," she said.

Ms Morrison, who runs her own photography business in Adelaide, said the attack had strengthened her resolve to succeed in her career.

"I'm a traveller at heart and I'm a photographer at heart and I can't wait to get back behind the camera," she said. "I will be back out there shooting real soon, so people don't need to worry if they have booked me to shoot their weddings."

Ms Morrison said she had communicated with friends and family via Facebook to keep them updated on her condition, but could not wait to get home.

She said the experience still felt surreal and "at the moment it's still hasn't really hit home".

"I finally got the all-clear from the doctor last night to say I'm fit to fly and I'm just waiting for the insurance company to confirm that," she said.

"Once I'm home with my family and friends it will probably sink in how lucky I was - it will be a story for the grandkids that's for sure."