Child injured in Crooked Tree cattle stampede

All those contented cows wandering around the bucolic village of Crooked Tree look quaint and harmless… but today one family found out that looks can be dangerously deceiving.

Clarita Russell, Mother

“It went too far. My child could have been killed and we don’t need anyone to be killed now. It has to be stopped now.”

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

There was nothing Clarita Russell could have done but watch in horror as her son, eleven-year-old Jesse Russell, was crushed beneath the hooves of a stampeding herd of cattle.

Clarita Russell

“We were on our way to school. I took them out; they usually catch a ride in the morning from a neighbour, so I brought them out to school the morning and upon my way to school, my mother-in-law was there and she showed me some cows in a neighbour yard and we looked at them and they were there in the yard eating the neighbour’s fruits and different plants and sort. So we went home and by the time we reached her gate, we see the cows coming, running. That time we didn’t know that two guys were at the neighbour’s back yard chasing the cows and so I ran, I had my other two babies, an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, so I manage to get them across the road up to her veranda stairs and I didn’t noticed that he was behind me coming from across the road. So I just managed to get the other two kids and I ran myself because the cow almost hit me, but by the time the cow fly past me and I turn around I saw my son, all I could see was that he was pitched over, slow motion. But that time I guess he was already knocked out.”

Young Russell lay motionless on the ground, suffering from a concussion to the head.

Clarita Russell

“He was knocked out. I was hitting him on his face yelling Jesse, Jesse, no response and his grandmother came over and start wetting him with water. He was out for about seven minutes. The brain had swelling on it and different doctors came in and said that, so they are treating him for that.”

Russell, who is hospitalised at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, is complaining about headaches and cannot remember the accident. It is expected that he will be discharged after a couple days… that is if the results of another scheduled CAT-Scan are satisfactory. And while Russell may recover, his mom remains worried about the next time, as cattle owners continue to graze their animals on other people’s property.

Clarita Russell

“It’s always been a problem. The people from the village say this has been a problem for years, but I guess the problem has to be stopped now because it went too far.”

The villagers plan to hold a demonstration tomorrow morning in their community to protest what has happened and to see how laws can be enforced to keep the village free of stray animals.