Incident number: 835
Response ID: 300,776,430
Date: 11/08/2015
Location: Hartsop near Patterdale in the Lake District
In her own words ……..
“It was the first day or our holiday. My husband had gone cycling. My brother and I were walking through a field with cows in the distance, I put the dog on the lead because I didn’t want him to chase them. (he didn’t usually but I was being cautious.) A few minutes later I noticed that the cows had come closer and the next thing I knew I was being headbutted in my chest and trampled. I just remember thinking that this couldn’t really be happening and that it really hurt!. I managed to stagger up but they butted me again. I have no idea if it was one to two who were attacking me.
I covered by face and my brother managed to grab me and pull me to safety. It was probably all over in a few minutes but felt like forever. At no point did I think I wasn’t going to make it, survival instinct kicked in. We had no mobile reception so my brother left me to find a phone. Other people arrived and tried to help. I was really struggling to breathe but was pretty numb and shocked.
The air ambulance took me to Preston where I was diagnosed with 2 collapsed lungs, multiple broken ribs, a big laceration on my right knee which required operating on, a broken hand which required an operation and pins, a broken collar bone and horrendous bruises all over my body and my face in particular. I was in hospital for 10 days with 2 operations on my knee and hand. I also received physio for weeks after and psychological help because I was diagnosed with PST and even now, just a photo of a cow makes my stomach churn.”
Fast forward to today and Alison is understandably still very cautious.
She says several things “I would like better signage but sometimes signs say that there are cows with calves in fields but they don’t offer an alternative route. My friend and I take so many “cow avoidance routes” probably climbing fences we shouldn’t just to get away from them. We had another experience recently where we had no way out and had to clamber through streams and woodlands to get out of harm’s way. This time the cows were so inquisitive but who knew what was likely to happen. I would like better advice on what to do, some say wave your arms, some say don’t, keep dog on lead or not, I sometimes think farmers put cows in fields to stop you walking through!!”
Cattle Safety 