News / Pensioner recalls terrifying encounter with bull
A 72 YEAR OLD woman has admitted she “could have been killed” after being attacked by a runaway bull in Lerwick.
A stot broke free from Seafield Farm in the town on Tuesday evening and injured two people as it travelled along the streets to Greenfield Place.
It was eventually secured in a trailer at around half ten at night after help from farmers.
Mary Thomason, who lives in Lerwick, was charged at by the animal near the football pitches at the Clickimin Centre.
She was taken to hospital before being released with just bruising and a swollen hand.
Speaking to Shetland News from her home on Wednesday, Thomason said that she was out for an evening stroll near the Clickimin as a football match was taking place.
“I was just walking along there, and I had been right around from Westerloch,” she recalled. “The boys were playing a game. I was looking at them playing, so my head was turned.
“But when I turned straight on, there’s this animal coming right for me. He just went for me. I was knocked out for a few seconds, and then I was winded.”
Thomason added that the animal, which is said to weigh up to 600kg, then charged back down the path in the opposite way – but she managed to escape in time with the help those nearby.
“When I got myself sitting up, I couldn’t get my breath. I said ‘somebody help me’. Boys came out of the park and sat with me, and they told me to sit still.
“But they said ‘here he comes again!’ – so he comes charging down the path again, the opposite way, towards me.
“They got me inside the park and shut the gate. So I don’t know what happened with the bull after that.”
On Wednesday morning Maurice Anderson, the farmer who owns the animal, called to ask how Thomason was and later brought her flowers.
One of the parents watching the football game said he was almost knocked down by the bull as he and others tried preventing the bull from charging at the lady again.
“There was a paramedic there and checking her injuries and was therefore reluctant to move her at that point but the bull was getting closer and closer.
“They tried to get her on her feet no matter how she was to get her towards a gate into the playing fields.
“So we got over the fence with a view to hopefully delaying the bull, because the woman was still being helped getting out of the way, so it made a bee line for us all and we managed to scramble out of the way, and the bull made another change at the gate.
“It obviously was going for people and that was the scary thing – I am so pleased that the lady is okay,” he said.
Thomason said that a day after the frightening incident, she felt a “bit sore and a bit shook up”.
However, she is now likely to avoid the area after being spooked by the attack.
“I love a walk around the Clickimin – it’s lovely, because it’s been renewed now. But it’s frightened me.
“I don’t know if I could go for a walk there again – even if someone was with me. It’s not even a bull – I’d be fairt if a dog came for me. I’d think ‘That’s the bull come for me, maybe a dog will come for me too’.”
The 72 year old said that the stot, which is two years old, “could have killed her”.
She added that the incident’s out-of-the-blue nature brought back memories of being involved in a car prang.
“I thought that there was something like this that had happened before to me, but I couldn’t mind what it was,” Thomason said.
“What it was, when it came to me, was when I was in the Black Gaet a couple of years ago. I was parked in the lay-by off the road. The next thing I saw in mirror was this guy coming for me over the brae, going at full speed.
“It brought it back to me – it was like this car that had banged into me. It felt like it had happened before. It wrecks your nerves.”
She expressed her thanks to those who helped at the Clickimin, as well as those in the fire brigade, ambulance service and at the Gilbert Bain Hospital.
Thomason also thanked her immediate family – who were left understandably shocked by the surprise news – and the wider Shetland public, who have also been supportive.
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