Woman hurt by bull on the run
ON Thursday, November 26, 1969, a woman was injured when she was attacked by an enraged bull and was knocked off the seawall in Queen Elizabeth Drive, Suva.
She was Keresi Macanalagi, 29, of Nasese Rd, who was treated for bruises to her left thigh and a fractured ankle bone at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital and allowed to go home.
With Mrs Macanalagi at the time of the incident was with her two and a half years old daughter who suffered a cut forehead when she fell off the seawall with her mother.
The bull was one of about 15 which escaped from a herd of 74 while being unloaded from the Maritime Department’s landing craft, Duiyabaki, on the beach at the the Agriculture Department’s quarantine station at Vatuwaqa.
Some of the cattle swam out to sea towards the reef while others went ashore and wandered about in people’s compounds in the Nasese and Vatuwaqa areas.
Men from the veterinary section of the Agriculture Department swam and used outboard-powered punts to round up cattle they were able to find in the sea.
One local ship, the cutter Malolelei, on its way to King’s Wharf, stopped and picked up a cow which was swimming about 300 yards off the seawall at Nasese.
The cattle were from plantations on Taveuni and were consigned to the veterinary section of the Agriculture Department.
Mrs Macanalagi, wife of Police Constable Saula Macanalagi, said she and her daughter were fishing on the seawall near the Outrigger Motel when they were confronted by a bull and cow.
“We shooed them away and I turned my back to continue my fishing when my daughter saw the bull near us,” she told The Fiji Times.
“I tried to chase it away, but it charged and stood on the back of my ankle and gored my thigh, pushing my daughter and me off the seawall.
“It was a frightening experience and I think we were lucky that we were pushed off the seawall otherwise we could have been seriously injured by the animal.
The bull was captured shortly afterwards in the sea opposite Nasese Rd.
Livestock officer Kevin Malvey, in charge of unloading the cattle from the
Duiyabaki, said the animals had to swim quite a long distance from the ship to the shore.
“We got some of them back to the main herd, but others got worked up by dogs and small boys watching the operation and made off,” Mr Malvey said. “We have unloaded cattle from the
Duiyabaki at Vatuwaqa like this before and have had no trouble.”