Dave
Well-known member
I have a new one on the list of phone calls you don't want or expect. Yesterday morning along with two friends loaded up a pot load of feeders to go to a feeder sale at Toppenish today. I had 42 of the 75 calves on the load. About 3:30 in the afternoon I am at the office and I got a call saying that the truck wrecked. Of course that first call had little information, The driver was ok, but the description we had dead calves all over the place. I raced home and was getting ready to go over to the wreck site. I finally got a hold of my buddy who had lined up the truck. They had his number and he had the whole story as it came in. The wreck occurred a lot closer to the other end of the trip. It would be near dark before we could make it over. The guy who owns the sale yard was contacted right away (I heard about it more than an hour after the wreck) and he had sprung into action. Got in touch with some ranchers who live near the wreck. They got down there with horse to keep the cattle from spreading to the far corners of the earth. He sent a load of panels up to build a corral to catch them in. 4 or 5 goosenecks to load them up and haul to the yard. He got it all handled so we didn't need to go over last night.
Turns out there was one dead calf and one crippled calf. I know that the dead one was mine. From the description we aren't sure which one of us owns the crippled calf. My buddy talked to the the driver, the state patrol, and the guy from the sale yard. All of them said we were real lucky. From the looks of the trailer they all should have been dead. Any of you who have driven highway 12 over White pass know that there are lot of places that there would have been no survivors. The truck and the trailer are both totaled.
I am leaving in a couple hours to go over and look them over. Hopefully they are in as good a shape as I am hearing and not all skinned up. The sale is not until this evening. So hopefully they look good and sell well. I would prefer to get a check from the sale yard than to deal with the trucker's insurance, although I know that he is buying me one calf for sure.
Turns out there was one dead calf and one crippled calf. I know that the dead one was mine. From the description we aren't sure which one of us owns the crippled calf. My buddy talked to the the driver, the state patrol, and the guy from the sale yard. All of them said we were real lucky. From the looks of the trailer they all should have been dead. Any of you who have driven highway 12 over White pass know that there are lot of places that there would have been no survivors. The truck and the trailer are both totaled.
I am leaving in a couple hours to go over and look them over. Hopefully they are in as good a shape as I am hearing and not all skinned up. The sale is not until this evening. So hopefully they look good and sell well. I would prefer to get a check from the sale yard than to deal with the trucker's insurance, although I know that he is buying me one calf for sure.