Only in CC

I don't know what's worse. This article or the fact that my own cow used to break out and cause terror among the streets of CC. Or maybe that my Dad once hit a horse. Bottom Line: Watch out for livestock in Northern Cali.

Cows killed in auto accidents

Published: October 23, 2007

By Nicholas Grube

Triplicate staff writer

CRESCENT CITY — Escaped cattle collided with two vehicles over the weekend causing a bovine massacre on U.S. Hwy. 101.

In total, four cows were killed after they somehow wandered onto Hwy. 101 around 7:30 p.m. Sunday and were struck by a Ford F250 pick-up truck coming down Crescent Hill in the northbound lane.

"There was cows all over the place," said Budget Towing's Mark Dunlap, who assisted in cleaning up the wreckage Sunday evening.

"I had to attach a chain to one of the cows' legs to pull it out" from under the truck, Dunlap said.

The initial impact didn't kill all the cows, Dunlap said, with one of the animals struggling to survive when he arrived. "It probably had a broken back," he said of the cow.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the Ford truck wasn't the first vehicle to encounter the free-ranging cows.

"One accident happened about two minutes before the other one," CHP Public Information Officer Don Bloyd said.

A cow ran out into the road and into the right side of Crescent City resident Edgar Murillo's mini-van as he was traveling down Crescent Hill near Endert Beach Road, Bloyd said. Three others joined it in the roadway when the Ford F250—driven by 62-year-old James A. Clark of Brookings—came down Hwy. 101 and slammed into the group.

"He (Clark) K.O.'d the four of them," Bloyd said.

Seeing cows in the roadways around Del Norte is not unusual, Bloyd said, especially on rural streets.

"Cows out in the road is pretty common," Bloyd said, "not necessarily on Hwy. 101, but on the side roads, yeah."

Neither Murillo or Clark sustained any substantial injuries during the accidents.