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102 cattle dead after White River area collision (5 photos)

"As a result of the livestock trailer accident west of White River on November 16, 102 cattle were killed," says Susin Micallef, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs media relations strategist (acting).
"As a result of the livestock trailer accident west of White River on November 16, 102 cattle were killed," says Susin Micallef, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs media relations strategist (acting).
 
"The carcasses were picked up and delivered to a rendering company in southern Ontario."
 
Two of the four rigs that crashed on Highway 17 in a heavy snowstorm early that Sunday afternoon were hauling cattle.
 
“It wasn't a very nice scene to say the least,” says Ontario Provincial Police Constable Peter Bertin from OPP's Marathon detachment.
 
“We had two cattle trucks basically one on top the other with one partially submerged in icy water.”
 
Bertin describes the scene as a sharp corner, close to the shore of a lake with very thin ice on it.
 
“Did some of the cattle go through the ice?” he says. “We have no direct evidence of that but we don't doubt that it's very possible.”
 
Motorists who passed the collision shortly after the crash happened described the scene as horrific.
 
They talked about seriously injured cows stumbling around Highway 17 while others came through the roof of the overturned cattle trucks.
 
OPP officers responding to the scene couldn't have been prepared for the scene they would be working to manage that afternoon.
 
“It was an out-of-the-ordinary situation,” Bertin told SooToday. “We do get at least one of these [cattle truck crashes] a year and we try to predict and prepare for everything but every situation is different.”
 
The OPP's first duty is to protect the public and, in the case of any collision, its first order of business is to assess the situation and check to see if any of the people who were involved in the crash are injured.
 
After the people involved in the primary event are taken care of, the OPP move on to securing the scene so there are no further injuries to motorists.

Once on the scene early Sunday afternoon, White River OPP detachment sent word to area media, warning the public that Highway 17 would be closed from White River to Marathon due to a four tractor trailer collision involving livestock.
 
The highway was reopened in less than four hours.
 
But removal of all the carcasses, and capture or dispatch of all the cows that escaped the trucks took considerably longer, said Bertin.
 
“The towing company put up signs warning motorists to slow down,” said Bertin.
 
For good reason.
 
About four days after the collision he and another constable were driving in the area and found two cows licking the salt off the road.
 
“We chased them off the road but all they did was wander a short distance away and look at us,” he said.
 
Removal of cow carcasses took at least five days, report witnesses who traveled through the area, during which time the carcasses were left on the side of the highway where they had been piled and loosely covered with hay.
 
Temperatures hovered around freezing so there was no need to find cold storage facilities for the carcasses, but more than a few travelers through the region were party to a gruesome reminder of Sunday's collision.

Warning - photo gallery contains extremely graphic images of dead cows


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Carol Martin

About the Author: Carol Martin

Carol has over 20-years experience in journalism, was raised in Sault Ste. Marie, and has also lived and worked in Constance Lake First Nation, Sudbury, and Kingston before returning to her hometown to join the SooToday team in 2004.
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