When this woman missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime gorilla-watching opportunity in Rwanda, her tour guide decided to start sending her photos to help cheer her up. This incident occurred two years ago, but Nicole Griffin, aka Nikki, still receives texts from her friend, Janvier. She shared the sweetest video on social media about his lovely messages, which often contain pictures and videos of local gorillas. Did we mention that Janvier is the one who rescued Nikki when she couldn’t finish the rigorous hike?
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In her video, the woman explained that she had a horrific asthma attack during a six-hour hike in Rwanda. According to her, the man actually carried her back to the foot of the mountain on his back! Although Nikki was devastated that she didn’t get to see a single gorilla on the tour, her newfound friend started keeping her updated with photos. Now, she gets to see amazing footage of these animals all the time!
Nikki also shared some of the videos that Janvier had sent her. One of them was an adorable clip of him saying hello with a gorilla in the background. Another showed a gorilla walking around on all fours.
This woman is still very grateful to the man who rescued her during her asthma attack! She even set up a GoFundMe to help him support his family, where she described the terrifying mountain incident in more detail.
The tour guide who sends Nikki gorilla photos also saved her life!
“I started having an asthma attack and I couldn’t breathe due to still recovering from a very severe acute case of COVID-19 a month prior,” she recalled. “I have never had issues hiking or breathing before so this was a shock to me as I found it more and more difficult to walk and eventually ended up crying and gasping for air on the ground.”
Nikki continued, “Janvier came to my rescue and kindly offered to help me down the mountain, as we were already 2 hours into the 6-hour hike. He grabbed all my gear, along with me, and carried me down that mountain for 2 hours.”
It’s amazing that, even after two years, Nikki and Janvier are still messaging each other. Although she may have missed out on seeing gorillas in person, she did make a lifelong friend in the tour guide who saved her life (and sends her awesome nature photos)!
You can find the source of this story’s featured image here.
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