Shmuel Buikner, an Israeli doctor, was killed on Friday after he was attacked by an elephant in Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal. He left behind two parents, both doctors themselves, and two younger brothers.
Buikner was raised in Or Akiva in northern Israel and later moved to California, where he began medical school. After five years, he moved back to Israel to finish his degree at Ben Gurion University in Be’er Sheva.
Regarding the devastating news, his mother, Tatiana Buikner, told N12: “My son was supposed to come home next Thursday. He worked in a hospital in Nepal since he wanted to aid medicine in the third world, and he dedicated his life to giving.
He chose to study medicine since he saw it as a mission,” his mother added. “It’s hard to explain how much he wanted to be a doctor, and at the end of the training, of all times, while he was volunteering at the nature reserve, he was killed, this is a huge tragedy.”
Buikenr, an intern at the Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, was in Nepal with an Israeli delegation volunteering at a local hospital. The Foreign Ministry is aware of the incident. Israeli consul at the embassy in Kathmandu, Dana Fisher, and Tal Bluigrond from the Israelis abroad department are in contact with the family and are helping to bring Shmuel’s body home.
