Joliet, Illinois (CBS) – Interstate 80 was reopened near Joliet late Tuesday night, hours after a cattle carrier crashed and more than a dozen cows and bulls eventually fled.
Illinois police said at about 3:40 p.m., the military responded to an accident involving a cattle carrier on I-80 near Houbolt Road. Several cows and bulls were found free in the eastern strips.
Chris Habermel of CBS 2 reported that a cattle carrier collided with a second semi-trailer and a third car. As a result of the accident, the cattle received serious damage, the trailer broke, which allowed the cattle to enter the roadway. After the accident, the damaged cattle vehicle ended up in the central middle ditch.
The driver of the cattle received life-threatening injuries and was taken to hospital. There are no other human injuries.
On board the livestock were about two or three dozen head of cattle. Several animals did not survive the accident and were thrown into the road and the middle.
But 17 cattle eventually blocked the lanes on the roadway, and some fled into the wilderness and fields nearby – in order to possess the skills of cowboys and wrestlers.
Along the service road near the quarry Robert Kalunzi was spotted deep in the woods watching cattle.
“I heard a rustle in the weeds, so I stopped,” said Kaluzny. “The car came, ‘Hey, can you watch them?’ And I say, ‘Watch what?’ “Cow!”
German Terry of CBS 2 and photojournalist B.J. Johnson was filming Kaluzhny when one of the 17 cattle jumped out of them. They were feet away from a huge bull that was looking down at them.
The bull eventually flew back into the woods – but then more help came. A group of bowls joined the quest to lasso raise nomadic cattle.
Kaluzny was joined by those cows and benches of cows – all with the mission to safely argue with the animal.
That bull that looked down, Terry and Johnson was a successful lasso.
“I kind of stayed behind, just to watch – and these guys with their lasso, they got hooves, and then they went down – so everything was fine,” Jackie Tuma said.
Tuma was caught on a detour through Illinois. When she drove up to see a bull rushing towards her car, she said her impulse was, “I’ll stop and get out of the way.”
The entire herd was collected and counted at the end of Tuesday.
All lanes reopened at 9:32 p.m. after they were closed for nearly six hours between Houbolt Road and Larkin Avenue.
But for many it was a pretty surreal scene – as you know, real life doesn’t very often mimic “Rawhide” in Will County, Illinois, in 2022.
