This was going to be a difficult mission. Kuranze is far south, skirting along the Tanzania border. Extracting an adult elephant is always a tall order, but the presence of a young calf significantly complicated matters. We needed to get timing just right, to ensure mum and baby were reunited on solid ground.

A lot of moving pieces needed to fall into place. The SWT helicopter collected the SWT/KWS Tsavo Mobile Vet Unit from Voi. Meanwhile, as luck would have it, a SWT grader was stationed about 30 kilometres away from Kuranze. While reinforcements flew down, it made the slow journey by road.

By the time we arrived, the herders had extracted the calf. He promptly bolted, but they managed to catch up with him and tied him to a tree. This was quick thinking, ensuring he didn't run off while his mother was trapped in the well’s depths. But there was still the very large — figuratively and literally — challenge of the fully grown elephant still inside.

Dr Limo felt it would be too risky to anaesthetise the elephant in the water. Instead, we decided to use the grader to start backfilling the well. This would raise water levels, floating the elephant to a makeshift step from which she could clamber to safety. It was an all-hands operation: As the grader scooped shovelfuls of earth into the hole, every person on site was throwing in stones and soil to create a step.

Field operations are often like this: Hours of painstaking work, followed by a blink-and-you-miss-it finale. When the all-important step began to take shape, Dr Limo and Taru, our pilot, turned their attention to the baby. After untying him from the tree, they shepherded him back towards the well, so he would meet his mum when she emerged.

All of the sudden, a vehicle rushed around the corner with an urgent message: The elephant had clambered to safety — and she was heading in the calf’s direction! Perhaps it was luck, perhaps she was hyper attuned to her offspring’s location, but either way, the mum made a beeline for her baby the moment she reached solid ground. This was hugely fortunate; if she had gone off in the other direction, we would have been faced with the formidable task of engineering a reunion.

Taru immediately leapt in the helicopter and circled overhead, to be absolutely certain that mum and baby had linked up. He was greeted by a heartwarming scene below: The mum inspected her baby from trunk to tail, making sure he was okay. And then, even better, the rest of the herd circled in, enveloping the pair back into the fold. It was a harrowing day, but it ended in the best possible outcome.