Post by Dave on May 15, 2013 15:52:15 GMT
On the J.Vine show today they were talking about the 66 year old man from Wiltshire, who was recently killed by cows while walking his dog in a field. His brother was also injured suffering a punctured lung and broken ribs. His sister in law who was also with him, managed to escaped unhurt
I have lost count of the number of times I have walked through fields that had cows in them, there were a number of times I was not very happy doing so. Carol never saw any fear what so ever and I often felt a bit of a wimp at times as she just walked close them to without a care in the world.
I was told when I was young and do not know if it’s true or not, that we look twice as big to cows than we really are. That would be good as at least I would look tall to someone even if it was only a cow. I was also told that was the reason a cow would be far more scared of us than we should be of it and I often kept that thought in my head when I was walking through a field full of cows.
I openly admit there have been a few times that I was rather scared; one such time was our walk to the Avon Dam. As we came back from it the path was completely blocked by cows and I was hoping Carol might just wait until they moved off the path. But she just walked right through them having to pat a few of them on their rumps to get them out of the way. I just kept as close as I could to Carol and prayed they did not move back into the same position again before I got past them.
On another walk we did in the South Hams there were also young calves in the field and I believe this is the time cows can become a greater danger to us, even more so if you have your pet dog with you. The man who was killed was walking is dog and it does seem it’s just a case of cows feeling the need to protect their young.
In our case we were not walking a dog and when we entered the field they were someway down a large sloop and there seemed no danger at all. But when we got halfway across they all seemed to come together and came charging up the sloop. I had told Carol to quicken her pace and it was a good job she did as he only got to the gate out of the field just in time.
I have walked through so many fields where the cows simply do not take any notice of you, but I have walked through some fields where I have felt they were just eyeing me up and when that has happened, I have felt some fear and wished I was not where I was.
Cows are very large and if you did get knocked to the ground you will get trampled to death, not a nice way to die and painful I would imagine. Carol and I wanted to get to a tower at the end of one field near Plymouth, it was full of cows and they were all looking at me and one or two felt brave enough to walk towards me. Another occasion I wished I was not standing in the middle of a field full of cows.
How do you feel about walking through a field full of cows? Has anything happened when you did?
The cows on the Avon Dam Walk
