Rescue crews save cows from ice
Published: February 12, 2007
Gary Brenner was thankful that rescue crews saved two cows from drowning Tuesday afternoon in an icy pond west of Longmont.
When Brenner tried to save a calf from the icy pond last winter, he fell in, too.
“I went right in with the calf,” Brenner said.
Luckily, he didn’t have to go through that again Tuesday.
A passing driver saw two of Brenner’s cattle — a cow and a calf — struggling in an icy pond on the southeast corner of North 49th Street and St. Vrain Road and called 911 at about 1 p.m.
Rescuers with the Longmont Emergency Unit and the Hygiene Fire Department pulled a raft out to the cattle and broke away ice to clear a watery path to the shore. Two volunteers with LEU jumped into the pond to help herd the cattle to the shore, said Bill Nelson, training officer for the Hygiene Fire Department. The cattle were in the pond for about 40 minutes.
“Both were swimming for a while,” Nelson said. “The little one could hardly stand when she got out.”
Brenner, who lives in Lyons, leases about 10 acres at the site, where he keeps a herd of 25 cattle. The property owner called Brenner to tell him the cow and calf were in the pond; by the time Brenner arrived, rescue crews had the cattle out of the water.
Brenner said he thinks both animals — beef cattle worth between $1,000 and $1,500 — will be OK.
Temperatures jumped from the low 20s last week to a high of 48 degrees Monday and 61 degrees Tuesday.
“I imagine with the thaws this year we’ll be getting a lot of these kinds of calls,” Boulder County Sheriff’s Deputy Patrick Gallagher said.
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