LAUREL — The Laurel Volunteer Fire Department was dispatched to a car wreck involving loose cows on Highway 212 on the evening of Tuesday, March 19, 2024,
“Call came in as a cattle truck rolled over on 212 down by our water plant,” Travis Nagel, the assistant chief, said on Wednesday. “Cows and a busy four-lane highway is never a good mix.”
The crew feared the worst, thinking it would be a bigger incident with injured cows at the scene.
“Initially we were thinking a very large tractor-trailer and a bunch of cows on the road and that, fortunately, didn’t turn out to be the case,” said the operations Capt. Shane Willis. "It was my first cow (rescue). We’ve had cats, geese.”
When the fire department arrived on the scene, the humans involved in the two-vehicle wreck did not have life-threatening injuries, so they moved on to the animals that needed rescuing.
Laurel police, state highway patrol and Laurel EMS were also at the scene.
Kurt Markegard, the city of Laurel's planning director, was leaving town to go to Helena and heard the call for the wreck. He immediately got off the interstate and went to the scene.
“I felt that with my background being around cattle, that I needed to probably see if I could help in any way,” Markegard said.
Markegard left to grab his brother's portable corrals, and the crew quickly secured the six cows who had minor injuries.
“I think that incident shows how well multiple agencies work together in this area,” Nagel said.
