Pinned by fallen tree, cow rebounds

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Timberrrr nurses while his mother, Stormy, watches the camera. The two survived a scary tree crash.

Lynn Grooms/For Agri-View

Limbs of a large oak tree pin a cow at Andy Smith’s Double EE farm near Hazel Green, Wisconsin. The decades-old oak tree fell July 11 during a strong storm.

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Andy Smith’s cow, 8.5 months pregnant at the time, is thought to have been pinned under the fallen oak tree for 17 hours.

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Dave Wiegman, left, helps Andy Smith – barely visible in a dark-green shirt – and Sam Smith, Andy Smith’s brother, saw limbs off a fallen oak. Wiegman shares a fence line with Smith

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Sam Smith saws one of a tree’s larger limbs near a trapped cow.

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Andy Smith, center, and Dave Wiegman check on the trapped cow while Sam Smith, foreground, prepares a rope to move tree limbs.

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Andy Smith adjusts a hip lift on his cow. But before he finishes, she stands on her own.

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Andy Smith checks on the cow’s condition after the accident. He moves her to his farm’s cattle shed a few days later.

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Now called Stormy, Andy Smith’s cow eats hay in the cattle shed while her calf, Timberrrr, stays close.

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Timberrrr, 3 weeks old in the photo, is now ‘full of spunk and gaining weight,’ Andy Smith says.

Lynn Grooms/For Agri-View

Dr. Kailynn Martin is a veterinarian with Veterinary Associates of Hazel Green in Wisconsin.

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Lynn Grooms For Agri-View

HAZEL GREEN, Wis. – It was a dark and stormy afternoon near Hazel Green. Wind gusts of more than 70 miles per hour and driving rain hit about 5:30 p.m. July 11 while Andy Smith was milking. The next morning when he drove his 4-wheeler to the back pasture he noticed one of the tall oak trees in his pasture had toppled. As he approached the fallen tree, he noticed something more disturbing. One of his beef cows – 8.5 months pregnant – was pinned beneath two large limbs.