A daily-rated worker of a village in Jalpaiguri saved himself and his family from a wild elephant at home on Saturday by “enticing” the animal with rice and breaking one of the tinned walls of his home so that they could escape.

True to his name, Buddhiman Oraon’s quick thinking helped him, his wife and two daughters evade the elephant in their room, earning praise from villagers and foresters.

Sources said that in the small hours of Saturday, a herd of seven-eight elephants entered Kherkatabusty, a hamlet in Nagrakata block, from Diana forest.

“It was raining heavily and I was on alert,” Oraon said.

Around 3am, an elephant entered his hutment. Buddhiman asked his wife Laxmi and two daughters to get under the wooden cot and himself squatted on its top.

“The elephant was a few feet in front of me and swirling its trunk to wrap me in it,” Oraon recalled. “I wondered how to divert its attention. Suddenly, I spotted a sack of rice and shoved it towards the elephant.”

As the elephant ate the rice, Buddhiman jumped off the cot, ran to the other end of the room and ripped open a part of the tinned wall. He asked his wife and daughters to run out through the gap and then followed suit. By the time the elephant stopped eating, the family was safe outside.

The elephant damaged another wall of the house and left after a while, he added.

At daybreak, they found that the herd had damaged two other hutments. The herd, locals said, returned to the forest.

A team of foresters from Diana forest range reached the spot to assess the damage. “We appreciate the manner in which Oraon saved himself and his family," said a forester.