Macenstein

Like most of you, the main reason I’ve decided to not become a billionaire is the dramatically increased risk of elephant trampling. It just doesn’t seem worth it. Still, there are SOME who are brave enough to risk being gored by an elephant and having their foot twisted backwards, dangling by 2 tendons in the name of acquiring gobs of cash. One such man is Billionaire Tom Siebel, of Siebel Systems fame, who recently recounted to Forbes the extremely disgusting specifics of an elephant attack he suffered last year while on safari. And while the trampling is bad enough, apparently Sieble’s iPhone fared a bit worse than his crushed leg, which after 16 surgeries, doctors claim may one day allow him to run again. I don’t think the same can be said about his iPhone.

One of my favorite excerpts:

I can see the gray, the hair follicles the eyeball, the trunk, the tusk, the foot—the whole thing. And I was like, “Okay, what are we going to do now?” And the animal then proceeds to kick my teeth in, basically. It knocked me to the ground with its trunk, it rolled me, punched me, put a tusk through my left thigh, gored it, then ripped it out sideways. It stepped on my leg, kicked my leg, broke six ribs and ripped up my shoulder. I remember every instant of it, trying to protect my head with my arms. I remember the blows to my lower extremities, and it just hurt so bad I couldn’t believe it. Imagine what it’s like taking an elephant tusk through the thigh or hav[ing] a 6-ton animal step on your leg It just snaps. The pain was intolerable. I had one thought: “Please, God, make this stop.

Wow, that sure would suck, and Tom’s definitely the man for not passing out. But the most amazing thing about this story for me is that Siebel apparently had an iPhone with him in the middle of the jungle, with presumably better reception than I have 20 minutes outside of NYC.

I [still] have the iPhone that was in my left front pocket that basically exploded. It’s now in about 200 pieces, and I have been meaning to send it back to Steve Jobs for a refund.”

Haha… good one, Tom. But Apple doesn’t even cover water damage on the iPhone, so odds are you may have to dip into the kids’ college fund and buy yourself a new one.

If you aren’t squeamish, you should really do yourself a favor and check out the full article on Forbes, it’s a pretty wild story.