A Utah man was hospitalized after he stopped on the side of the road to help a stranger who had two cows and a stray bull in his yard.
Good Samaritan, Mark Sargent, 44, from Newcastle, tried to help the man herd the animals back into a pen until the owner could come and collect them.
Initially, the pair managed to herd two cows off the property, but problems began when Sargent tried to push a bull toward the gate at the end of the driveway with his truck.
Sargent, who has a background in cattle work and was previously a bull rider, left the protection of his truck and attempted to drive the bull out the front gate himself.
Mark Sargent of Newcastle, Utah, was trying to help another man herd two cows and a bull into a pen until the owner could come and retrieve the animal when the animal suddenly charged at him
Sargent used his truck to push a bull toward a gate at the end of the property. That’s when the trouble started. Mark Sargent, pictured right, with wife Hailey
He managed to get the animal through the gate, but he was not prepared for what happened: the bull suddenly turned and charged at him.
The angry bull threw him about 15 feet into the air and then at least another 25 feet down a hill, breaking his pelvis and hip and also causing multiple rib fractures.
Sargent is now in hospital and will need a hip replacement because doctors fear his broken bones could shift and sever a major artery.
The family has a GoFundMe which has raised $5,000 so far, which will go toward paying Sargent’s mounting medical bills.
“I’ve been around cattle most of my life, so I stopped and helped out. I’m no stranger to cattle,” Sargent told KSL.com.
“It just happened so fast that there was nothing I could do except protect my head. That’s basically what was going through my mind, was protect my head, because if he had hit me directly in the head, I would have been killed. So I took most of the blow to my hip and my side area,” he explained.
Sargent says he’s not sure how the cattle got onto the property or why the owner didn’t help retrieve the cattle.
He felt that since he was going to die anyway, the family man who is the father of a teenage daughter might as well help.
Sargent used to be a bull rider and felt he could handle the situation
Mark Sargent is seen with his wife Hailey Sargent and their daughter in one of their Facebook photos
Sargent was keen to stress that he had not been gored by the bull, as the animal had no horns (archive photo)
“I’m just annoyed because obviously it’s not a nice animal and there are little children running around. If that had happened to one of those children, it would have been their death.”
The bull’s owner was eventually located and the bull was removed from the area.
The Iron County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that one man was gored by a bull and that two other men were also involved in a fight, but few details were available.
While waiting for the ambulance, Sargent saw the property owner and the rancher getting into a physical fight.
He said he didn’t care what the fight was about or how it was resolved, but was mainly concerned with his “very painful” injuries.
“I tried to get up, get to the truck and make myself as comfortable as possible, but I couldn’t,” he said.
Sargent, however, stressed that he had not been gored by the bull, as the animal had no horns.