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TRANSCRIPT

- [Narrator] A call has come in for the Reteti team.

(feet thumping) (birds chirping) (person speaking in a foreign language) - [Speaker] Hi.

(person speaking in a foreign language) Oh, brother, hello.

Aya.

(person speaking in a foreign language) (water sloshing) (person speaking in a foreign language) - [Speaker] Huh?

(person speaking in a foreign language) (person speaking in a foreign language) - [Narrator] Dotted throughout the dry river beds in this region are water holes.

And a week-old baby has fallen into one.

- The elephants can smell water.

Those wells are deep.

You'll see little trunks that can smell the water but can't quite reach it.

And they're either lose their footing or they're kind of nudged in by the excitement of the rest of the herd that are trying to also get to the water.

(people speaking in a foreign language) - [Narrator] Elephant herds are often forced to move on for their own survival, leaving calves behind when their rescue attempts fail.

- Plan is to get the elephant out of the well.

We can't lose her.

(people speaking in a foreign language) (elephant sounding) (people speaking in a foreign language) (elephant sounding) (people speaking in a foreign language) - [Speaker] All done, all done.

(people speaking in a foreign language) (person speaking in a foreign language) - [Speaker] You can actually see how long he was in the water, because the bottom of his feet are all white.

Just like us, you know, if you sit in the bath for too long, you get wrinkly fingers.

(people speaking in a foreign language) - You're just constantly thinking about them.

You're sort of waking up in the night, and it's the first thing that you think about.

You know, you're checking in with the team at all hours.

- [Narrator] The team knows just how deeply the ordeal weighs on a young elephant's mind.

(feet thumping) (giraffe sounding) Back at Reteti, in order for this baby to heal, the keepers must earn its trust.