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Cow dies despite rescue efforts

Rescuers unable to save the animal, which had fallen into a drainage ditch.

Jeff Galloway, Butler County Emergency Management Agency director, and Monroe firefighters try to comfort a cow after they pulled it from a drainage ditch where its head was lying in water Friday. The cow was later put down by its owner because of the severe injuries it sustained while giving birth to a stillborn calf.

Staff photo by Pat Auckerman Jeff Galloway, Butler County Emergency Management Agency director, and Monroe firefighters try to comfort a cow after they pulled it from a drainage ditch where its head was lying in water Friday. The cow was later put down by its owner because of the severe injuries it sustained while giving birth to a stillborn calf.

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By Tiffany Y. Latta, Staff Writer 1:43 AM Saturday, February 19, 2011

MONROE — It wasn’t the ending rescuers wanted.

But neighbors and firefighters say they did everything they could to save a 1,000-pound cow that was discovered at about 3 p.m. drowning in drainage ditch on a farm and struggling to give birth to a stillborn calf.

“We definitely gave it our best shot,” said John P. Centers, Monroe assistant fire chief. “We had a lot of manpower out here and we bounced around ideas on how to make the best out of a bad situation. But we didn’t win that battle today.”

A man found the animal lying in the ditch at a farm at 461 Todhunter Road with its face in shallow water and the calf hanging about halfway out of its body.

EMA Director Jeff Galloway, a farmer and trained animal rescuer, said the cow was likely on its way to woods on the farm to give birth, but slipped in mud surrounding the ditch and was unable to get up.

Galloway and Monroe firefighters, who were recently trained in large animal rescues at Butler Tech, pulled the calf out of the cow and used tow straps to pull the cow’s head out of the water and onto its stomach.

But due to trauma suffered during the birth of the calf, the cow was euthanized at 6 p.m. after its owner Donald L. Green returned home.

Genie Hughes, 61, and her boyfriend, James Johnson, 55, of Middletown, who were at a home across the street, were among the first on the scene.

“She was moaning. She never got loud or anything. But it was just sad,” Hughes said.

“I wish they could have done more to save it. But they said there was nothing they could do ... I just feel very sympathetic toward it.”

Green, 73, said the cow was one of six on his 26 and a half-acre farm and that it has had nine calves since he purchased it from a friend a decade ago.

He said he was grateful to neighbors and emergency responders who helped the animal.

“I appreciate everything they did.”

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