LEHI, Utah -- Two Lehi City workers have been recognized on social media as heroes after they spent their Thursday morning saving a dying cow.
The cow they affectionately named Margaret got herself into a sticky situation. She was stuck in a water ditch in thick, sticky mud that was 2-feet deep.
“It’s tough having a heart I guess, it was kind of sad,” said Kade Evans, a Lehi City storm drain technician.
“I decided to go pull her out because she was sitting there shivering and we could tell she’d been there for a while; thought we’d better get her out before she died,” said L.B. Miller, another Lehi City storm drain technician.
They were in the water ditch area near 1500 South and 2300 West to clear some growing trees over a covered ditch that was next to the open ditch that cattle on the land drink from. They had a mini excavator with them, and that’s when they saw Margaret.
“The main thing was to keep her head above water because she was exhausted,” explained Miller. “She kept wanting to lay down and give up.”
“We kind of got behind her and pushed her forward, and her front end just kept going down, and her back-end lifted up,” described Evans. “LB had to hop in there and lift her head up so she wouldn’t drown.”
Miller got inside the bucket on the excavator and started digging around the cow to give her the room needed to break free, but she just kept falling forward until a strap finally arrived.
Miller managed to get a strap underneath her and lift her to safety above the ditch bank.
“It was actually really cold,” Miller said. “As soon as I put my hands in there they went numb. It was really cold cause it was when that snow storm came and went through overnight... We didn’t want to see her die. We were just lucky we were in the right spot at the right time.”
After she was pulled up to safety, she rested and then charged her rescuers.
“She started chasing us,” Evans said. “I was like, ‘ I’m dead I’m dead’ but then we kind of scattered and she quit chasing us.”
On Friday Evans and Miller went to check on Marge, and she was sitting far away from the ditch with the other cattle. She was easy to spot, though, still covered in thick mud, but not willing to take another dip for a bath.
