I used to do dispatching for night-shift security for a large computer-related company in a western state in the U.S. (sorry for vagueness).
One foggy night/early morning as we were nearing the end of our shift, one of the patrol guys calls in from his vehicle and says he found a dead cow on one of the roads that ran adjacent to company property. Our building was surrounded by fields that sometimes had cattle on them, so we figured one must have gotten loose somehow and got hit by a car, probably because it was so foggy and hard to see. The officer was on his way back to dispatch anyway, but 3 minutes later, as he’s on his way back and on another road (the company site was several acres), he calls in again to say there are MANY LIVE cattle all over the road and running into one of the parking lots in front of the main building. Turns out they all busted a fence and escaped, and were now freely running around the campus. We have no idea who they belong to, so we call the head of security (who was on his way in as by now it was like 6am), then call the cops to see if they can tell us who owns the land the cattle escaped from.
Meanwhile, other people who work in the building are arriving for the day, and they are calling in to dispatch saying they cannot leave their cars because they’re surrounded by cattle. The herd (we later learned it was about 100 head) split into several groups, and started blocking the entrances to the building, and people were just afraid to get out of their cars with them roaming around. The fog made everything worse because you couldn’t see very far across the lot before you were suddenly up against a herd of spooked cattle.
Eventually we got ahold of the owners, and they had to come out to the campus with horses and literally round the cattle up with lassos and herd them back into the fields. The cops came to redirect traffic on the highway to avoid the worksite entirely while our patrol assisted with the Jeeps. It was utterly ridiculous. Thankfully the only casualty was the 1 dead cow.
I don’t remember if they ever figured it out (it happened 20 years ago at least). We certainly didn’t receive any calls into the dispatch center for a car wreck, but then again we were just local security for the one company. Also, the person might have been driving drunk and didn’t want to call the accident in to the police. People loved to speed on that back road, too.
I used to do dispatching for night-shift security for a large computer-related company in a western state in the U.S. (sorry for vagueness).
One foggy night/early morning as we were nearing the end of our shift, one of the patrol guys calls in from his vehicle and says he found a dead cow on one of the roads that ran adjacent to company property. Our building was surrounded by fields that sometimes had cattle on them, so we figured one must have gotten loose somehow and got hit by a car, probably because it was so foggy and hard to see. The officer was on his way back to dispatch anyway, but 3 minutes later, as he’s on his way back and on another road (the company site was several acres), he calls in again to say there are MANY LIVE cattle all over the road and running into one of the parking lots in front of the main building. Turns out they all busted a fence and escaped, and were now freely running around the campus. We have no idea who they belong to, so we call the head of security (who was on his way in as by now it was like 6am), then call the cops to see if they can tell us who owns the land the cattle escaped from.
Meanwhile, other people who work in the building are arriving for the day, and they are calling in to dispatch saying they cannot leave their cars because they’re surrounded by cattle. The herd (we later learned it was about 100 head) split into several groups, and started blocking the entrances to the building, and people were just afraid to get out of their cars with them roaming around. The fog made everything worse because you couldn’t see very far across the lot before you were suddenly up against a herd of spooked cattle.
Eventually we got ahold of the owners, and they had to come out to the campus with horses and literally round the cattle up with lassos and herd them back into the fields. The cops came to redirect traffic on the highway to avoid the worksite entirely while our patrol assisted with the Jeeps. It was utterly ridiculous. Thankfully the only casualty was the 1 dead cow.
It was no ordinary night. It was the Night of the Cow.
This is the story I came to this thread for. Amazing! Thanks for posting!
Did they determine the cause of death of that cow? I would think any car that hit it would have received a lot of damage.
I don’t remember if they ever figured it out (it happened 20 years ago at least). We certainly didn’t receive any calls into the dispatch center for a car wreck, but then again we were just local security for the one company. Also, the person might have been driving drunk and didn’t want to call the accident in to the police. People loved to speed on that back road, too.
With the fog this sounds like some amazing zero context photos. Did you get any photos of the Cows of the Fog that you can share?
I agree, that would have been fantastic. In my head, it looks absolutely beautiful and crazy
This was over 20 years ago, and I have no pics, sorry!