Nurse trampled by cows rings 999 – and is dismissed as a prank caller
BARELY alive after being trampled by stampeding cows, Sarah Leonard somehow managed to find her mobile phone and call 999. But when her desperate call was answered, the operator’s tone was far from helpful.
As the 60-year- old nurse lay in a remote field, in agony from broken arms, ribs and collarbone, and barely able to speak because of a fractured jaw, she was at first dismissed as a hoax caller.
A recording of the call posted on the internet reveals how Miss Leonard was questioned for a minute and a half by the Lincolnshire Police operator before being believed.
Miss Leonard, who had been participating in a hi-tech treasure hunt game known as geocaching, is heard screaming in pain and barely able to string words together.
She says she has fallen over and does not know where she is, adding: ‘I’m in a field of cows, I’ve just been attacked... by the cows.’
As she sobs, the call-handler is heard responding sarcastically before saying: ‘This
‘I was in terrible pain’
is a hoax, obviously, isn’t it, obviously. Which area of Lincolnshire, we will get your mobile phone checked.’
She is eventually convinced that Miss Leonard is not making a prank call – and the rescue process began.
The operator stayed on the line talking to her for 49 minutes until paramedics arrived.
Police used the signal from Miss Leonard’s mobile to trace her to North Scarle, eight miles from Lincoln. Her car was found parked in North Scarle cemetery and shortly afterwards she was located in a field.
Miss Leonard was taken to Lincoln County Hospital, where she spent two and a half weeks in intensive care.
Her King Charles spaniel Megs, who was with her when the herd of a dozen cows charged them last November, ran off and was found cowering in a bush the following day by Miss Leonard’s brother, Andrew. Miss Leonard, f rom Sheffield, said she did not bear the operator any ill will despite her initially unsympathetic tone.
‘I presume I couldn’t talk properly because of my broken jaw,’ she said. Miss Leonard, who worked at Sheffield Teaching Hospital and is doing medical research two days a week, was carrying a hand-held GPS as part of her geocaching but assumes the device was knocked out of her reach by the cows.
‘I can’t remember, but I think because of all my breaks and everything I was in terrible pain so I probably couldn’t move very much either,’ she said. Lincolnshire Police said yesterday: ‘All the time the caller was being spoken to, background work was going on to try to establish her exact location. There was never any delay in the police’s response to the incident and everything was done with urgency to find where the caller was.’