One Mad Cow: H. Scott Haynes, roughneck

Cooper was sick today, and Dad is recovering from ankle surgery, so I thought it would be fun for them to entertain each other a little.  I've figured out how to use the voice recorder on my iPod, so watch out world.  I've transcribed it, but it is probably more fun to listen to:  click the link and turn on your speakers..

Scott's cow story

“Okay Grandpa, tell us the story about the cow.”

“Okay, children…  This happened to me back in 1977-78, the winter of 77-78.  I took a part-time job at the Western Livestock Auction …. where lots of cattle come to town!  And I was the sorter, out in the backyard sorting cows for size, and sexing them for steers and heifers, cows and bulls, ‘cause they had to be sold separate in the pen. 

So I was sorting one day, these BIG, white Charolais cows that weighed 1600 pounds plus.  They were wiiiild and spooky.  And I was holding the gate, and we were letting some go by the gate, and some go by the pen of the gate I was holding. And so we cut several of them out, and several of them were behind me, and this one cow was running as fast as she could, and I was standing on the end of the gate and against the fence; I thought she was gonna go in the pen with the other cows, but she decided to go right through me into the other cows.  And I didn’t move fast enough and she BANG knocked me over, down on the ground and she run and she stepped on my chest and put all her weight on my chest, and I staggered up and could hardly stand up.  I stood up and I could feel my shoulder slumped to the side, and I couldn’t hardly walk.  And they called an ambulance, but the ambulance didn’t get there so the people took me in the car to the hospital.  I knew something bad was wrong, and I got to the hospital and they discovered my collarbone had pulled away from the breastbone.  So they performed a big surgery, and took the tendon out of my left arm, and cut my chest open and tied the collarbone back to the breastbone with the tendon out of my left arm.  And there I was in the hospital and had a long recovery.”

“How long were you in the hospital?”

“I don’t remember how long exactly I was in the hospital, but quite a while.  And I finally got to come home, and the surgeon did such an excellent joy that it never ever hurt again, and that’s been thirty some years ago.  He did an excellent job.  That’s what happened.  I got trampled by a coooow, and she was BIG and white, with pink eyes that were on fiiire.”

I remarked that I didn’t realize that he’d been working at the livestock auction, I always thought it had happened at home.  He said no, he and Jim Hadley took the job there to earn some extra money.  This was the winter after he and mom had gotten married, (so luckily, mom didn’t have any babies to worry about.)

He said that mom stayed in a little apartment there in Great Falls while he was recovering, he thinks it was one of the Heagy aunt’s.

He said [laughing] he got worker’s comp for it, something like 12-20 dollars a week for a while.