Bullriding events typically need paramedics and ambulances at the ready for the riders but the Prince George Exhibition's bullriding audience was forced to witness the rare site of an injured bull Saturday.
The beast was in the middle of its performance, successfully throwing cowboy, Brady Fuller, from its back. Fuller slid down the side of the bull named "0-49" and was on the ground when the bull's feet landed on him. Cowboys have been severely injured and even killed in similar circumstances.
This time, however, the bull lost its footing and took its own weight at an odd angle, breaking its own leg. It bellowed in pain and surprise in front of the stunned audience and equally stunned organizers.
"I can still hear it in my head," said audience member Helen Gabriel who said it has turned her off ever watching bullriding again. "I was just sick - sick with what I saw. I heard the click of the leg breaking, and saw him struggling to keep his back end up. He would go down and get back up again, then go down. He couldn't put any weight on the leg. I know once an animal breaks its leg like that, it has to be put down."
Volunteer handlers from the Prince George Exhibition and staff from the bullriding contractor company C-Plus Rodeos escorted the bull off the infield but could do little else than lay it down to rest in a small backstage corral until a proper stock trailer could be brought to the scene. It took more than an hour for this to happen. Many in the crowd of about 2,000 viewers left early as a result.
During the wait, the staff from C-Plus Rodeos inspected the injury hoping it was one that wouldn't require a mercy killing. Instead, they confirmed a fatal fracture and the animal was euthanized later off-site.
"It was not shot on the grounds of the exhibition park, I have heard people saying that it was," said Prince George Exhibition president Nancy Loreth. "There is a vet on call for the PGX but that call was not made because it was understood that the animal had to be moved as soon as possible, and the vet would only be needed off site, if at all. When a proper trailer for loading and unloading a bull in that condition was located and brought in, the bull was taken to our local abattoir where it was put down by professionals."
These provisions were not immediately on site, said C-Plus Rodeos co-owner Roy Call, because this sort of incident was rare.
"Taking these extra steps is something we're going to discuss with the PGX, and I wish there was an appropriate trailer right there ready to go, and maybe a vet on site as well, but honestly our minds just hadn't gone to those things before because something like this just isn't part of what happens in bullriding," Call said. "This would have been hard to foresee. Cowboys - that is who we need the safety for usually."
Loreth said C-Plus Rodeos had not only a good reputation but a stellar one for animal care. The PGX uses them in part for the clean bill of animal health they have. Any business rooted in livestock will have instances of injury and death, she acknowledged, but every corner of the fair touched by an animal also had to undergo the modern microscope looking at handlers' behaviour.
"They have to be well taken care of, to do what they do," she said of the bulls. "The volunteers and staff were certainly very surprised by this and handled it with due diligence and as best as humans could do for a bull in a very rare form of distress. No one else could have done anything more."
Gabriel said the worst part was the long time it took to get relief to the bull. She wasn't emotionally prepared for it.
"The riders - there is an expectation there that you might see someone get hurt," she said. "I guess I just never thought about how it would affect me to see an animal in so much pain."
