SUV collides with cow standing on I-15
ST. GEORGE — The driver and passenger of an SUV escaped injury after hitting a cow standing in the middle of the road on Interstate 15 near Littlefield, Arizona, early Sunday morning.
Officers and emergency medical personnel were dispatched to the single-vehicle crash on northbound I-15 near mile marker 10 involving a Ford Explorer.
Upon arrival, officers found the SUV extensively damaged and the cow lying dead near the outside shoulder of the interstate.
The driver told troopers that he noticed no other vehicles while traveling on the interstate and then came upon the cow standing in the middle of the roadway, Arizona Highway Patrol Trooper Steve Hughes said.
The driver told troopers “it was really dark out and the cow was very black,” which gave him no time to respond, apply the brakes or to initiate any other evasive maneuver to avoid hitting the animal.
The driver was able to control the vehicle enough to avoid a rollover, but when the SUV struck the cow, it spun the animal around, resulting in more than one collision with the SUV.
There are cows that graze in the area, Hughes said, but they generally have no access to the interstate. There are right-of-way fences all along I-15 that prevent the animals from getting to the road, unless they jump the fence and a guardrail.
The cow “somehow got over the right-of-way fence near Desert Springs,” Hughes said, “and while we know the cow got through by jumping over or getting around something, we still don’t know how that happened.”
The cow was tagged with a number that troopers used to attempt to find the animal’s owner. After checking with ranchers in the area, they were unable to locate the owner at the time of this report.
“The ranchers keep those numbers on file with various departments,” Hughes said. “They started calling each other, but no one has gotten back to us with that information yet.”
The two occupants of the SUV reported no injuries to troopers.
“Thank God for airbags and seat belts,” one emergency responder said at the scene.
The Arizona Highway Patrol and Beaver Dam/Littlefield Fire District responded and tended to the scene.
This report is based on statements from police or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings.
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