Rescuer mauled in cow attack

A herd of “possessed” cows attacked and injured a man in South Auckland’s Totara Park yesterday.

The man suffered injuries to his leg after he went to the aid of a woman who was on the ground and surrounded by the agitated cattle.

Eyewitness Mike Small told the Herald the man saved the woman before the animals turned on him.

“He had a laceration about the size of a palm out of the back of his hamstring, just ripped off . . . and another couple of tennis ball-sized chunks out of his shin.”

Small and his wife were biking through Totara Park about 4pm when they heard a scream.

Small saw the woman on the ground with several cows surrounding and attacking her.

“All of a sudden this guy appeared and helped her to her feet and then the cows knocked him to the ground and trampled him.

“I took over there as fast as I could and by the time I got there he had managed to get himself to the nearest fence line and over the fence to protect himself.”

The woman who was first attacked by the cows contacted St John to get an ambulance to help the rescuer, but she told the eyewitness they wouldn’t come if the cows were still there.

Hiding in a pocket of native bush behind a fence, Small climbed over the fence to see if he could slowly move the cows away to allow the ambulance to get through.

“They started clawing the ground and snorting at me like I was a matador.

“We had to pick up the patient and move him to the other side of the native bush that we were sheltering in to enable ambulance staff to even get in,” Small said.

The herd of about a dozen cows had a mother and yearling in the group, all without horns.

A St John spokeswoman said a patient with moderate injuries was transported to Middlemore Hospital.