‘Passengers’ Have Beef With Reckless Driver Truck Flips, Killing 37 Cows

You’ve heard of Walt Disney’s story of “101 Dalmatians.” Now the Montana Highway Patrol presents the tale of 101 cows.

And the ending isn’t pretty.

Thirty-seven of the cows met an early slaughter Monday evening when the truck they were in overturned between Perma and Paradise, Mont., on State Route 200.

Craig Simonson was eastbound at 5:10 p.m. when he lost control of his double-trailer on dry pavement. The truck tipped over onto the cab’s passenger side.

Simonson, 37, and passenger Larry Wald, 45, both from Fort Shaw, Mont., were treated for minor injuries at Clark Fork Hospital and released.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Debbie Batterson. “It was a mess.”

Blood lined the inside of the trailer and the road, Batterson said. Survivors were escorted out of the truck, a majority of them covered with the blood of the dead cattle.

Simonson was given a speeding ticket.

A tow truck eventually hauled the dead cattle out of the trailer. They were stacked on the side of the highway, out of sight of passing motorists.

Traffic was narrowed to a single lane for six hours.

Batterson said the last three calves removed from the trailer at first appeared to be dead, but were still alive.

“They were covered with the blood of the dead ones and were just shaking,” Batterson said. “They looked pretty rattled.”

The surviving 64 cattle were loaded onto another truck and taken to the nearby Sanders County Fairgrounds. They were given a medical OK from Hot Springs, Mont., veterinarian Mike Marinan.

The survivors were headed for Missoula, were they will eventually be slaughtered.

, DataTimes