Cattle crash -- Driver OK but 10 steers killed in truck wreck

Thursday, October 20, 2005
Red Willow Western firefighter Ryan Vrbas saws an escape hatch in an overturned trailer to free trapped cattle. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)
Nebraska State Patrol Troopers Doug Petty, left, and Corey Townsend inspect the wrecked cattle truck. (Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Daily Gazette)

Ten calves died south of McCook Wednesday afternoon in a truck-trailer accident made even less bearable by frightened, bawling calves and then cold, heavy rain.

A report by Nebraska State Patrol Trooper Doug Petty indicates that the accident happened about six miles south of McCook on U.S. Highway 83 at 3:15 p.m., when the trailer of the southbound truck, driven by Patricia A. Crouch, 40, of Dodge City, Kan., tipped as it entered a curve, and it and the semi-trailer flipped onto their right sides.

The truck slid in the southbound lane and came to rest facing southeast in the southbound lane. The trailer ended up on the west shoulder and in the ditch.

The truck-trailer had loaded Wednesday morning north of Tryon and was carrying 97 head of black and black-white-faced steers each weighing about 530-540 pounds. Nine were killed in the accident; one more had to be destroyed because of his injuries.

Crouch was not injured, Petty's report indicates.

Firefighters from Red Willow Western Rural Fire Department used 12-inch and 14-inch K-12 rescue saws to cut three holes in the top of the overturned trailer and one in the tailgate to release calves trapped and piled inside.

The calves bolted wild-eyed, or stunned and stumbling, from the trailer and ran or limped into a pasture of tall grass west of the highway. Employees from the West Sale Barn in McCook, Nebraska Department of Roads personnel and Red Willow County sheriff's officers herded the cattle toward the pasture and away from the highway.

Firefighters cheered when a stunned calf who had laid in the ditch for quite a while finally got up, shook himself off and walked into the pasture.

About 5 p.m., sharp bolts of lightning brightened the darkening late-afternoon sky, thunder rolled, and great plops of rain started falling. The rain turned cold and driven when the wind picked up out of the north and northeast.

Sale barn employees rounded up the cattle, loaded them in Wayne Poore's farmyard into another trailer and hauled them to the sale barn.

A total of 81 calves were taken to the sale barn, and Gayle Ruggles, manager of the barn, said this morning the men were going back out this morning to find six more head probably hiding in the grass.

Ruggles said the calves had been loaded north of Tryon Wednesday morning and were going to a feedlot in Kansas.

The dead calves were transported by Nebraska By-Products of Lexington.

Sinner's Towing of Wauneta arrived just before the rain and, with a tense spider web of straps and chains, set the truck and trailer upright -- about 2 1/2 hours after the accident happened.

Red Willow County sheriff's officers provided traffic control for the accident, which held up traffic until about 7 p.m. Red Western Rural firefighters hosed spilled oil, diesel fuel and manure off the highway.

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