A wild elephant trampled a grandmother to death and injured her son on a road in southern Thailand.

The aggressive jumbo charged at Wanna Dangrat, 64, and Nantaphop Dangrat, 37, as they were riding home on a motorcycle home in Surat Thani on Sunday evening.

Wanna fell and was crushed by the rampaging beast while Nantaphop managed to crawl away and hide in the thick undergrowth. Despite the poor phone signal, he was able to call a rescue team at around 7 pm.

Wildlife officers arrived at the scene, a remote dirt road bounded by tall bamboo thickets, and found the motorcycle abandoned on the path with Wanna's mangled body nearby. Nantaphop lay in the tall grass, conscious but unable to move.

Paramedic Narongsak Piankuntod said: 'The scene was located in a steep mountain forest, making the operation extremely difficult.

'We had to use four-wheel-drive vehicles to enter the area, then we switched to motorcycles and finally walked around 1.86 miles (3 kilometres) to reach them.

'There was also no phone signal or analogue radio communication in the area. It took over five hours to complete the rescue.'

Nantaphop was rushed to the Khiri Ratthanikhom Hospital with back and leg injuries. Doctors said he was in a stable condition.

The shocked son said he and his mother had been harvesting fruits to sell. They were leaving the forest when they encountered the jungle behemoth on the way home.

Atthaphon Charoenchansa, director-general of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, said the family will receive financial aid for funeral and medical fees.

He said the elephant had been roaming through the Khlong Yan wildlife range, a sprawling 188 square miles of woodland where elephants live.

As of 2024, there are an estimated 4,013–4,422 wild elephants in Thailand. The population has been increasing in recent years, but it is still a fraction of the estimated 300,000 wild elephants that lived in Thailand at the beginning of the 20th century. The main threats to wild elephants in Thailand are habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and conflict with humans.