AN ESTATE agent from Knysna, Western Cape, described how her husband was killed by an elephant cow which she had been photographing only minutes earlier on a game farm in northern Botswana.

Ling Dobson said yesterday her husband, Mike, 67, had been killed at the weekend in a "once-in-a-lifetime freak accident" which happened "in the blink of an eye" on a private game farm of close friends.

She said they had been walking with their hosts away from a watering hole where she had taken "the most awesome photographs of the elephant cow" when they heard the animal trumpeting.

"Mike was walking in front of me. The elephant took fright. No one knows what spooked her. I took a detour and Mike took a detour.

"Moments later I asked where Mike was, but by then Mike was no more," she said.

She said she and her friends found her husband nearby.

Botswana police confirmed that he had been gored by an elephant tusk "with great force".

Dobson said they rushed her husband to the South African border, about 60km away.