A dog walker said that she feared for her life and is ‘lucky to be alive’ after being strangled and repeatedly headbutted by a herd of wild cows in Lancashire for five minutes.
In May of this year, Sharon Eley was walking her five-year-old Lhasa Apso named Ralphie while being surrounded by twenty cows. The herd was led by an aggressive “ringleader” that repeatedly headbutted the victim, leaving her with 15 broken ribs, a punctured lung, a dislocated and shattered ankle, and a fractured collarbone.
During the assault, the 51-year-old woman was also left with a ligature mark and serious bruises when the strap of her purse looped around her neck.
The proprietor of a glamping company was only able to escape when other walkers entered the area and managed to distract the cows. The remaining walkers fled without injury.
Ms. Eley managed to get herself to her feet prior to a standoff with the last surviving cow, which ultimately retreated. She was afterwards able to crawl to the field’s edge and climb a dry-stone wall.
A Mountain Rescue crew then took her to the hospital, where she had two surgery on her ankle. A month later, she returned to her home in the hamlet of Blacko, Lancashire.
Now, she urges folks to be mindful of their surroundings while walking in the countryside.
Recounting the terror attack that occurred when she was walking her five-year-old Lhasa Apso Ralphie with a friend and her dog on May 22, she stated that she feared she would be killed by a cow.
‘It was terrifying’, she said. ‘They pushed me over, I was on my hands and knees and I didn’t know how to get out.
‘They’d got all around me and all I could see was hooves after hooves after hooves.
‘I stood up and then they pushed me down again. I was on my hands and knees again and then they were headbutting me on my back.
‘I was wearing a hard leather backpack handbag and they were hitting it. The next minute they’d snapped the arm off my backpack, that had gone round my neck and it was choking me.
‘I’m very lucky to be alive.’
A keen hiker who’d racked up over 30 miles in four days as part of her training for the Yorkshire Three Peak Challenge, Ms Eley had walked the same route just one day before and encountered no issues.
She and her pal walked through two fields with their dogs on a short lead, and crossed the first field with no problem.
It was only when they entered the second field that they spotted the 20 cows, including calves, huddled together around 20ft away.
‘My friend said to me ‘oh God I’m not sure about this Sharon’ and I said ‘it’s ok, we’ll just wide berth them,’ Ms Eley said. ‘Don’t worry, don’t run, it’s all good, just stand behind me, don’t worry about it’.
‘Ralphie was on his lead, he didn’t bark at them. There were about 20 of them and as we started walking they started walking to us.
‘Then the cows ran and that’s quite a scary experience, they skidded and stopped in front of us. They were just out of arm’s reach and one of them was snorting.
‘I was thinking ‘this isn’t very good’. Someone had once said to make yourself look big – put your arms out but don’t agitate them – and they will go away.
‘I’ve tried that before when I’ve been walking and it’s worked.
‘When they got too close I put my arms up, I didn’t shoo them or make any noises, but then they started to come closer.
‘They herded together as I tried to walk slowly away and the next minute they charged and pushed me over.’
While dog Ralphie was able to escape the onslaught, Ms Eley was subjected to repeated headbutts which caused catastrophic injuries.
‘When I managed to stand up and I went to put my foot down, it wasn’t attached to my leg,’ she said. ‘I had really good hiking boots on and I went to put my foot down it just went to the side.
‘Somebody entered the field at the other end so they all charged down the field at this other person.
‘There was one cow in front of me, again at arm’s length, so it was a stand-off now between this one cow that was just snorting and staring at me. I thought ‘this is game over now because I can’t actually move.
‘What felt like an hour, but was probably about three seconds, this cow just snorted and then walked off.
‘My friend was screaming for me to get out of the field, she tried to help me but I screamed at her to get off because I was in pain.
‘My adrenaline kicked in and I crawled on my hands and knees to get to the drystone wall. I got to the wall, turned over, threw my legs over and shimmied over it. Everything in my body was aching.’
A mere ten minutes later, Mountain Rescue arrived and transported her to Royal Preston Hospital, where she had surgery to keep her foot in place, followed by a second operation a week later.
She spent five days in the intensive care unit and two weeks in the major trauma unit before being sent for rehabilitation to Burnley General Teaching Hospital in Lancashire.
‘When the paramedics arrived they tried to give me a drink but I couldn’t move my neck,’ Ms Eley added.
‘When we got to major trauma it was like a scene out of ER. They hooked me up to a morphine IV and I had loads of scans and x-rays. It was quite scary because I didn’t actually want to ask what was wrong with me.
‘It’s weird as much as I thought I’d be dead brave and want to know everything at that stage I didn’t dare ask, I was really scared. I didn’t know what was wrong with me or whether I was going to die or not.’
She added that her broken ribs will take another six weeks to heal properly, four months on from the attack.
After the ordeal, she is still at a loss as to why the cows charged, and consulted a local farmer.
‘I asked if it was because I had a bright red jacket on, but he said cows are colour blind,’ she said. ‘He said that when cows calve you may get one who is a little bit temperamental, all the other cows just follow.
‘I’m positive, it’s going to get better. My friend is going through her own trauma from what she witnessed and not being able to physically help.’
Despite her ordeal, she still plans to get out into the countryside again as soon as possible.
‘I’m in a walking boot now and I’m already planning a walk on the canal next week,’ she said. ‘I’d like to think the experience hasn’t put me off hiking.
‘I was ultra-cautious before around cows so I do worry. I don’t know whether I would walk through a field with any livestock in it now.
‘My advice to other walkers and hikers would be to just know your surroundings. Know where you are because if you do get seriously injured it could be a case of life or death.’