The Worst "I Hit A Cow" Stories: It's Serious

Since my car accident on Oct. 27th, I've encountered something a bit unexpected from people = A total lack of either sympathy and/or empathy...

It's been 40 days, but every week still, someone else from work hears about the now 'old' news, and they come by my office to see me, and once again, I find myself retelling my "I Hit a Cow" story... I've told my story to soooo many people, I can't possibly count! The majority of those who call or write or come by, they express their caring for me and my family and a kind of grateful disbelief, that none of us were seriously hurt, which I sincerely appreciate. In fact, I've been so surprised and so very touched by how many people have taken interest, who have gone our of their way to tell me they're glad we're all okay.

Again, for all you grateful well-wishers our there, THANK YOU ALL!

There are a few people though -just a rare few- that behave with a sort of 'You're fine -everyone was fine- so get over it already, why don'tcha?' attitude, as if I shouldn't mention a thing about any of it when asked how I am or what's new, as if I shouldn't even still be thinking about any of it ...

...even though my insurance case may remain open months from now... even though I'm still jumpy when driving at night or whenever someone rides up behind another driver... even though, with the rodeo in town and the smell of fresh livestock manure in the air, my stomach churns and I feel physically sick from the smell, so similar to that of the night of the accident... even though, just a couple weeks ago, they were still picking more glass out of Brianna's face... And even though my Grams still can't bring herself to drive at night along that 5 mile stretch of hwy 89 between her home and my aunt Brenda's, even though my Grams would happily drive slow in order to keep an eye out for wandering cattle, but the speed limit is 65 mph and she fears that she'll either anger someone or be rear-ended by an inattentive driver...

Yes, we were damn lucky. But I really don't believe some people realize just how lucky we were. They see us, and they see that we're physically fine -we walked away from it- and so, because of that, it's all blown over as if it was nuthin' - - Try that attitude with Mary Jo, a woman who wrote to me a most heartbreaking letter this last Tuesday, asking for help, having found my blog and read my posts about my own experience. She has a far greater and far more painful understanding as to what can happen when cattle wander loose on public highways.

Having been given her approval, I'll tell her story: Mary Jo lost her dear son on October 22nd, to a cattle-related semi-truck accident here in Nevada, on highway 93 in open range territory. Her 32 year old son, John, was driving a semi-truck and pulling loaded double trailers at night and had no chance to brake. The cow went beneath his truck's undercarriage, seriously compromising the steering gear. He couldn't recover control of his truck and he went off the road and he died... Yes, driving a long, large and heavy semi-truck, he hit a cow and he died.

Try telling Mary Jo that it's important to maintain state open range legislation to protect cattle ranchers from costly lawsuits and fencing maintenance, and see if that will all sound reasonable to her.

If anyone has any ideas or contributions that could help stop people from being killed needlessly by livestock allowed to roam the highways freely, please contact Mary Jo: jodybell404 at aol dot com ~ Thank you.