Jan. 18--A 1,000-pound black angus cow struck by a car Friday night on U.S. 70 had two broken legs and had to be put down.
Zhi Li, 47, of New Bern, was driving a 1998 Toyota west on U.S. 70 about 3 { miles west of Havelock at 11:50 p.m. when he hit the cow that had somehow gotten out of its fenced-in farm across the highway from Carolina Pines Boulevard, said Trooper J.R. Benson with the N.C. Highway Patrol.
Zhi had his wife and two others in the car, and all were wearing seat belts. No one in the car was injured. It was a different story for the cow.
"It was a moo cow, about a 1,000 pounds worth," said Pete Bradeson, chief of the Township Six Fire Department that responded to the crash.
Bradeson said there were actually two cows in the highway.
"He saw the cow in the middle of the road and he swerved to miss that cow and he hit the other cow, and it totaled his Toyota 4Runner," Bradeson said. "He didn't see the second cow until he saw the first one."
Bradeson said the struck cow ended up in a ditch alongside the highway.
"He hit the cow broadside and broke the right legs on the cow and somehow the cow managed to get himself into the ditch," Bradeson said. "When I got there, he was trying to get up and run and he couldn't."
Bradeson told a couple of Craven County Sheriff's deputies that the cow needed to be put down.
"We had to go ahead and put him down because he had two broken legs and we wanted to put him out of his misery," Bradeson said.
He said one of the deputies used a shotgun to put the cow down.
The cow that Zhi managed to avoid hitting was even larger, estimated at 1,500 pounds, Bradeson said.
The wreck resulted in about $4,000 damage to the Zhi's vehicle, a total that may have been higher had he hit the larger cow.
Bradeson said seeing the jet black cow in the middle of the night on the road was nearly impossible.
"No reflective tape. No vest on or anything. You couldn't see him for nothing," Bradeson said.
Copyright 2012 - Havelock News, N.C.
