Letters: Where's the beef? On the road…

To the editor:

Driving past a certain cattle feeding operation 1.6 miles west of Moneta at 11:30 p.m. can be so hazardous to one’s health, if a driver is too inattentive or speeding much too fast. However, the most danger happens at night when visibility is at a minimum perhaps due to fog.

Early in the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 13, my aging wife unexpectedly lost her balance and fell hard onto a hardwood floor near our dining room table. Letting out a scream, she was in pain, crying uncontrollably sitting on the floor. Ugly looking bruises across her back and shoulders soon appeared. However, we were pretty sure neither hip nor leg bones were broken. By using pain pills and Salonpas pain patches, she was able to get through the day.

After going to bed, we realized she was never going to be able to get any sleep due to the pain and discomfort. At 11 p.m., we decided we had better take her to the Spencer Hospital ER to be safe. Between the Spencer Hospital and the Avera Clinic, that’s where all her medical records are located. We departed Primghar at about 11:45 p.m.

Immediately, I made up my mind to only drive 50 mph with my bright headlights on all the way. I expected to see a deer bounding across the road at any time. Typically, it’s a 30-minute drive to Spencer.

Heading east on B-24 going towards Moneta, I was scanning both ditches looking for deer. About 1.6 miles west of Moneta, several images began to emerge far out in my bright headlight beams. Immediately, I assumed there were several deer out ahead of me.

However, the closer I got to those images, I realized they were much larger than any deer. When I realized a small herd of cattle was loitering in the east-bound lane and on the shoulder of the road, I jammed much harder on my brakes than what I had been. Thank heavens I had only been driving 50 mph.

When I finally came to a stop, two steers were 20 to 30 feet in front of me in the east-bound lane and another half dozen or so were standing along the shoulder of the road not 10 feet from the passenger side of the car. My wife said she never saw them, perhaps because her back pain was foremost on her mind.

Right away, she said I had better call 911. Parked along the road with cattle standing on two sides of our car, the Clay County 911 operator answered my urgent call and asked, “What is your emergency?”

I reported what I was looking at loitering on a hard surface road 1.6 miles west of Moneta. I explained to her that we were heading for the Spencer Hospital ER.

“What’s going on?” she asked. I told her about the unbearable back pain my wife was experiencing from a fall that morning.

After I told her I was 1.6 miles west of Moneta, she then realized I was in O’Brien County. “You are in O’Brien County so I cannot do anything. I will transfer you over to the O’Brien County 911 operator.”

She did that and almost instantly I was talking to the 911 operator in Primghar. She asked what the emergency was that I was reporting. I told her I was looking at two large steers in the middle of the road only 20-30 feet in front of my car.

I also mentioned the other steers strung out along the shoulder of the road no more than 10 feet away. I then told her that my wife and I were hurrying to get to the Spencer Hospital ER.

“I’m leaving right now and this small herd of cattle is still on the edge of the road or on the road. You had better get someone out here,” I reported. The 911 operator said she would call the owner of the cattle and get him to chase his animals back into their pens.

I quickly left the site west of Moneta. At about 10 minutes before midnight. We arrived at the hospital ER at about 12:15 a.m. and stayed until 3 a.m. After being given stronger pain medication, her back pain began to subside and we were discharged from the hospital.

It was 4 a.m. when we finally arrived home after experiencing 15 harrowing minutes west of Moneta. These are the most frightening 15 minutes of our married life. Just so we never meet up with those darn steers again loitering on the road.

Loren Flaugh

Primghar