Posted on 04/14/2012 11:53:23 AM PDT by billorites
King Juan Carlos was admitted to the USP San José Hospital in Madrid on Friday night after returning from a private hunting trip in Botswuana where he suffered a fall.
He returned to Madrid in a private plane, in which he travelled sedated.
His right femur is reported to have been broken in three places. A statement from the palace says an emergency operation has carried out to reconstruct the fragments of the bone, and use a prosthesis. Radio Nacional reports the operation was a success. It was carried out by the same surgeon, Ángel Villamor, who operated on the King’s knee in June and Achilles tendon in September.
The King is expected to remain in hospital for four or five days. He is on painkillers. The Queen is in Greece and will not return to Spain until Monday, and the King’s official engagements will be covered by the Prince of Asturias.
Media report that King Juan Carlos was hunting elephants in Botswana and there are reports that he fell in the residence he was staying in, but this has not been confirmed or denied by the palace.
The Monarch appears on the web page of the safari company, Rann Safaris, who charge some 30,000 € for killing an elephant in Botswana.
Quite a fall to do that kind of damage.
I can’t shake the feeling that a “hold m’beer” moment allowed an elephant to display the versatility of it’s trunk
I have no sympathy
I hate what they are doing to that poor elephant making him pose like that.
That being said, I do like King Juan Carlos because he told Chavez to “shut up”
One has to be quite the marksman to shoot an elephant during a Canned Hunt.
Me neither for a monarch/ruler/dictator/president who goes off vacationing while his country is going through financial meltdown.
I don’t feel sorry for him in the least. There is nothing good in killing a pachyderm.
A more detailed account in the the Madrid newspaper makes it sound like he fell on some stairs. Drawings of the injury show it involves the proximal end of the femur. He's suffered from an arthritic hip so the surgeons plan to do an implant while repairing the other damage.
Meanwhile 20,000 more Muslim immigrants arrived in Spain, with 5 new Mosques opening up.
European royalty is almost entirely useless. The last one I heard say something sensible was the Danish Queen.
Looks like the king got some karmic payback.
“The Monarch appears on the web page of the safari company, Rann Safaris, who charge some 30,000 € for killing an elephant in Botswana”
I wonder how much they’d charge the elephants to kill a monarch?
Thanks for the details, billorites. That explains that kind of damage.
agreed. serves him right.
Nice double rifles.
Must have my Spanish rulers mixed up.
You realize that as a constitutional monarch, the King of Spain does not make policy? That is up to the President of the Government (Prime Minister) of Spain, not the King.
The Government and the General Court (parliament) have to sort the mess out.
who said anything about Obama? (kidding)
I remember years ago seeing some nutty pastor on TV proclaiming that King Juan Carlos was the Anti-Christ.
Juan Carlos has even less actual political power than you do.
“Juan Carlos has even less actual political power than you do.”
I don’t think so, I’m a Republican in Massachusetts.
good for him...
I wonder if the elephant-sympathizers have any clue that much of the $50k to cull one elephant goes to fund anti-poaching efforts that protect far more creatures, and a healthy population.
Elephants aren’t endangered, any more than white-tailed deer.
And they can be pests that need to be manged and culled.
It serves the idiot Juan Carlos jolly good for shooting elephants. That is so ugly and heartless.
It looks like idiot Juan Carlos is going to be in a wheelchair of a long time and then on a walker for the rest of his meaningless life.
The elephant got its revenge. I rather have had the elephant unharmed and alive.
Why is an elephant big, grey and wrinkly?
Also, he won’t be out there shooting more elephants.
He is finished.
That is great news.
“Why is an elephant big, grey and wrinkly?”
Please help me. I give up!
LOL! Actually, he’s been a pretty good king... a sort of inoffensive figurehead who seems to stay out of things. Lately, the husband of one of the infantas (princesses) has gotten into big trouble because he was peddling influence.
Juan Carlos himself makes a lot of money through what we would call lobbying, and the family is very wealthy. He was brought up in England, speaks Spanish with a faint English accent, and his wife, la Reina Sofia, is Greek.
They could be a lot worse. The problem, actually, is that he’s probably more conservative than the recent leaders of the country but is too chicken to say so. And he’s a constitutional monarch, so nothing he says matters anyway.
Because if it was small, white and hard it would be an aspirin.
Actually, he has been a damn good king. If if were not for his calming influence the crackerjack Spanish military would have been shooting Socialist MFs Willy-Nilly a long time ago. He has also had a somewhat moderating influence on the socialist MFs who think THEY run spaion. If you think our Left is loony, the Spanish Left makes Jane Fonda look like Martha Washington..
He is a wonderful sportsman and is reputed to have boffed Lady Di. !Viva Borbon!
Hey!!! You better get ready for a visit from the SS of FBI for talking about 0 bummer like that. Oh wait, never mind.
And the answer is? ???
“why was an elephant in my pajamsa?” ba dum
Sometimes what he's had to say matters very much.
Oh good grief!!!!
Thank you.
Elephants are sacred, sentient beings. Absolutely no reason to kill one. I had always liked this king - now I hope he is painfully crippled for the rest of his miserable life.
That was actually the moment that has kept him going ever since then. This was a difficult moment in the Transition, and he reassured the entire country and got them through it.
I don’t know what’s going to happen with the next generation. Felipe seems to be ok and willing to carry out his duties, as does his wife. But who knows what will happen when Juan Carlos dies, or who knows what Spain will be like at that time.
He’s definitely been good, but that mostly means that he’s stayed out of sight and hasn’t caused any scandal. He doesn’t have any power except his presence, but that has been good when he exercises it.
When Zapatero started making the Guardia Civil and the Spanish military accept “gay marriage” and having them turn up for these “weddings,” he was known to be opposed. But he never said anything.
And they are more important than people
http://www.savetheelephants.org/news-reader/items/botswana-battles-big-elephant-herd.html.
The Botswana elephant herds are one quarter of the total African elephant population. They are not endangered.
One way to reduce the numbers would be to ban hunting. Without the hunting licence fees supporting game management, the poachers would move in an reduce the herds. That's how it worked in East Africa.
Who knows indeed. I just spent 10 days in and around Madrid. Politically, financially and socially Spain seems pretty fragile. That goes for much of Europe though.
Spain has always seemed particularly brittle. Whether they can endure the crushing debt they face without some wrenching social upheaval is a worry.
I think Madrid, Castilla and the center (with extension to Asturias, Galicia, Extremadura on the W-NW side and Valencia and other areas south of Barcelona and west of Sevilla) will be ok. Sevilla might be ok, too, because they seem to have some common sense there.
On the other hand, Barcelona is nutz. They are all raving anarchists or marxists there, and they have tolerated the Occupy crowd tearing up their public spaces for so long that they can’t control it now.
One of the problems is that the regional governments have been spending like drunken sailors, particularly the leftist Catalunya and Andalucia, and if Madrid cuts off the money, some of these regions are going to flip out.
The only good thing in terms of Spain as a country is that once Madrid cuts off the money, the regions won’t have the power to do much of anything, even cause problems.
In that case, we should start shooting people. There are too many on welfare.
Good one!!!
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