After a near-death experience at the hands of a rampaging herd of cattle, a farmer’s daughter is looking to raise awareness about the dangers of seemingly docile, but actually deadly, cows
The threat from ‘killer cows’ is being highlighted by a group of walkers after a near-death experience. A website dedicated to “raise awareness of the dangers posed by cattle” was set up by Libby James.
The farmer’s daughter suffered a terrifying life-threatening ordeal when a herd trampled her in 2014. She had been on a walk along the Offa’s Dyke National Trail on the Welsh border with her husband Ger and their dog Arti. Libby was lucky to escape with her life after they were attacked by a herd of cattle, headbutting her to the ground before stomping her unconscious.
She had to be airlifted to hospital with medics describing her injuries as being like those received by car crash victims. Libby said: “It was just the shock of being headbutted. The force knocked me down, I thought, ‘Get up’.
“And then this lovely thing did it again and again and again, and in the end I couldn’t get up because I thought ‘I’m going to pass out’. I was thinking, ‘This is it, I’m going to die’.
“I looked up and all I could see were lots of hooves, not just the one that was attacking me, but all of the others about to come down on me, and at that point I passed out.”
Libby suffered multiple broken ribs, collapsed lungs, bleeding into both lungs and was left needing extensive dental treatment as well. Since then she has set up the group Cows On Walkers Safety (COWS), which runs the website ‘Killer Cows’ and has received more than 900 reports of cattle incidents since 2017.
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Shocking figures from the Health and Safety Executive show 62 people have died in encounters with the animals in the past 10 years. As well as warning of the danger from cattle, Libby is campaigning for safer routes in the countryside.
She added: “If you put cows in a field and you are no longer safe to walk through that field. You are blocking that footpath, and that is illegal.”
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