A Montana man suffered broken bones and sore ribs after being pummeled by a 1,200-pound black Angus cow that ran amok through downtown Billings on Tuesday.
Morgan Logan, 52, was released from the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, a day after the cow ran through Billings for nearly two hours before being shot by police.
I’ve been around livestock my whole life, so at first sight I thought it was pretty funny seeing cops chase a cow down the street,” Logan told the newspaper. “But she was like a bull at a rodeo.” Logan had been driving a gravel truck at the construction site where he works when he spotted police going after the animal and decided to help.
The cow escaped from the Public Auction Yards around 3 p.m. during unloading before going on a two-hour trek through the city’s downtown.
The paper reported the cow knocked over a cyclist, charged at pedestrians and nearly jumped over a police vehicle.
“It’s not like we are out in the pasture,” Lt. Kevin Iffland with the Billings Police Department said Wednesday. “This was a totally different scenario of asphalt and a lot of traffic. We are not equipped to wrangle large animals in a city environment.”
Logan said the cow charged at him “like a bull at a rodeo” from under a tree knocking him into the air.
“I couldn’t believe how fast she came out from under the tree,” Logan said. “I guess I saw her too late because the next thing I knew I was in the air. I had no fence to climb — she caught me right in the open.”
Police requested assistance from the state fish and wildlife parks office and the auction yard where the cow had escaped from.
Bob Gibson, communication and education program manager for Fish and Wildlife Parks, said they were unable to respond to the incident because the agency wouldn’t have been able to act fast enough.
“It’s not like we just go to the cupboard and pull out a dart gun and shoot,” Gibson said. “There are different drugs, concentrations and quantities that are all considerations when darting animals. Wardens do a lot of studying and environmental assessment ahead of time when tranquilizing an animal.
Eventually a police marksman was called and shot the cow through the heart, ending the the rampage. The cow was taken to a city landfill.
