Trampled victims tell of dangers from cows with calves

VICTIMS OF cow attacks have warned walkers of the dangers of cattle kept in fields with their calves.

Jacqui Beale, 48, suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung and was left needing stitches to her face after she was set upon by the beasts while walking her dog. The dog groomer told how she was left in fear for her life when the animals went for her in May as she came across them with their young.

“The dog was on a lead, but they weren’t going for the dog, they came for me and knocked me over,” she said. “I was bashed about by about eight cows. I remember being tossed from one to another and thinking I wasn’t going to survive.”

Ms Beale, from Wirksworth in Derbyshire, managed to get herself to safety, but warned others who may be unprepared for attacks. Grandfather-of-five Mike Pace is still in the process of having his leg reconstructed after he was attacked by cows in August last year.

The 55-year-old said he thought he was going to die when he was trampled while walking along a footpath with his wife, Gill, during a camping holiday in Abersoch in Gwynedd, Wales. The fatherof-four from Huddersfield said a black bullock that had looked menacing “charged me and threw me up in the air” and other cattle started trampling him. Mrs Pace escaped unharmed, but her husband, who works as a manager at BMW, spent more than a month in hospital.

He and Ms Beale are taking legal action and Sally Gray, a personal injury specialist at Slater and Gordon, is representing a number of people who have been injured by cattle.