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Hippo victim's brother to retrieve body
By Brendan Roberts and wires

02mar05

The brother of a Melbourne woman killed by a hippopotamus at a lakeside resort in Kenya will travel to Africa to retrieve his sister's body.

Vicky Elizabeth Bartlett, 50, from Kew, was with a group of 12 tourists, including other Australians, at Lake Naivasha when the hippo attacked, a Kenyan police spokesman said last night.
The Kenyan police spokesman said: "The hippo attacked the woman, flipping her into the air before tossing her on the ground and trampling her."

Mrs Bartlett was rushed to a nearby hospital but died while being treated.

Devastated husband Geoff Bartlett said from their Kew home last night that his wife was an adventurous woman who was touring Kenya for the first time and had been looking forward to the trip.

No one else was injured in the attack.

The incident took place on Monday night at Fisherman's Camp, a popular lakeside camping ground around which signs warn tourists to beware of hippos after dark.

John Mwangi, the group's tour guide, said Mrs Bartlett had seen a hippo on Sunday night and had gone to look again for one without telling him.

The group was en route to the Maasai Mara Game Reserve.

Officials from the Australian High Commission were in Naivasha, 90km northwest of Nairobi, to investigate the incident.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra said last night the Australian embassy in Nairobi was offering consular help to Mrs Bartlett's family.

A department spokeswoman would not say when Mrs Bartlett's body would be returned to Australia.

In March, 2000, Robert Lourie, from Caulfield, was killed while on his honeymoon after being attacked by a two-tonne hippo in a wildlife reserve in Botswana.

The 33-year-old – married at Albert Park Lake the previous month – was savaged by the hippo, which charged a group of canoes on a two-day excursion at the Okavango reserve in the country's northwest.

The hippo grabbed Mr Lourie by the leg, bit him and then dumped him in the water, according to a spokesman for the company that organised the excursion.

Mr Lourie died of blood loss from the injuries he sustained.

Hippos kill more people every year in Africa than any other wild animal.

They emerge on shore after dark to graze and will attack anything that comes between them and the water, where the animals feel safe.

with AAP

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