SEATTLE – Richard Root, a University of Washington Medical School professor who moved to Botswana earlier this month to help alleviate a shortage of doctors there, was killed Sunday when a crocodile dragged him from a dugout canoe, his family and colleagues said. He was 68.
Root was on a wildlife tour of the Limpopo River in remote northeastern Botswana with his wife, Rita O’Boyle. The couple had been visiting a clinic in the area.
Steve Gluckman, medical director of the Botswana program, said Root was in the lead dugout with the tour guides when the crocodile rose out of the water and grabbed him. He was not seen again. The tour guides were watching for hippos, but there had been no reports of crocodile attacks in the area.
A nationally known expert on infectious diseases and former chief of medicine at Harborview Medical Center, Root went to the African nation to train health care workers to deal with AIDS.
The move and his marriage last year had given him a new purpose in life after some difficult years, which included having bypass surgery, suffering from depression and caring for his previous wife until she died in 2001 of a neuromuscular disorder.
Root’s son David, a Seattle architect, said he spoke with his father on Saturday and that he happily described his work at Botswana’s Princess Marina Hospital in the capital city of Gaborone.
Other survivors include two sons and eight grandchildren.
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