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Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla
ROANOKE, VA—Local claims adjuster David Seaborne, a devoted husband and father of three, died Tuesday at the age of 37 following a long and painful personal battle with a 512-pound eastern lowland gorilla.
Enlarge Image Man Dies
Bereaved family members say Seaborne was much too young to be taken by a gorilla (inset).
According to his wife, Christine—one of the few people who was aware of his courageous struggle—Seaborne chose to fight the muscular, quarter-ton primate in private night after night in hopes of maintaining as normal a life as was possible for his family.
"In some ways, I'm relieved that it's finally over and David can be at peace," said a tearful Mrs. Seaborne, clutching at a recent photograph of her husband, most of his hair missing after being ripped from his scalp by the rampaging jungle beast. "To watch him seclude himself in that basement every night and know that he was about to be in an unimaginable amount of pain—it just became too much to bear."
"He fought that terrible gorilla with every last ounce of strength he had, but in the end, David's body just couldn't handle it anymore," Mrs. Seaborne added. "Every morning, he'd look at me with tired eyes and deep scratches across his face, and he'd say, 'Honey, I'm going to beat this thing.' God, he was brave."
Mrs. Seaborne said she's used most of her husband's life insurance payout to start the David Seaborne Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of those battling gorillas or other great apes. According to the foundation's website, the growing problem affects one in every 29 million Americans, and one in every 80 Congolese.
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