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 Kings 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 Kings 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.
Research the Downing Effect. It might provide some explanation for your current semi-hominid status.
Yes, but what was the elephant doing up in the tree in the first place? ;^)
“Research the Downing Effect. It might provide some explanation”
I will. Thank you.
Stop confusing your fellow FReepers with facts!
You clearly don't understand FReepers...most have no idea that the large numbers of elephants in many areas of Africa are causing huge problems for the animals due to starvation and the fact that their increased numbers are pushing them into populated areas surrounding the game parks. Human-elephant encounters never end well.
While I admire elephants a great deal, and have a deep reverence for all animals, and am not a hunter, there is a legitimate need for culling herds through permitted hunting...just like managing elk and deer herds.
I definitely wouldn’t criticize him for hunting! Although the left, here as in Spain, certainly does.
He’s clearly no Franco, but even Franco knew that things were going to change after his death...and the first person the Spanish elected after his death was a Socialist, or at any rate, a member of a predecessor of the current socialist party.
In the Spanish constitution, the king has virtually no power, so regardless of Juan Carlos’ opinions on anything, like any constitutional monarchy based on a parliamentary syste, Spain is governed by whatever party has a majority or can form a coalition.
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