Agence France-Presse

COPENHAGEN - A two-year-old boy got the fright of his life when a circus elephant named Rambo picked him up in his pushchair at a Danish leisure park, local media reported.

"I had to fight like a madwoman to free my son," Henriette Lundager told the regional daily Dagbladet Holstebro-Struer after the incident in which the pram was lifted two meters (6.5 feet) in the air.

Lundager and her son Malte suffered bruising in the struggle with the 27-year-old female pachyderm, described as the "nicest elephant in the world" by circus official Isabella Enoch.

The management of the park where the circus is located has offered the family free circus tickets and around 500 euros (788 dollars) to replace the badly damaged pushchair, the newspaper's website reported.

Enoch, however, said she believed the incident had been exaggerated, adding that Rambo normally liked children.

"Rambo just wanted to see if there was anything to eat in the pushchair," she said.