An Auckland woman who survived a brutal attack by an enraged herd of cattle in south Auckland used "wild karate" to fight for her life.
Aimee Wedgwood was running through Totara Park on the weekend when she noticed the group of cows acting suspiciously. Suddenly, they launched an unprovoked attack.
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"They were following me with their eyes. I was actually on my third loop of the park, I'd passed them two times before," she told NZME.
"I backed off the path then they all came around me from all directions."
Surrounded by the mad beasts, she fought them off using "wild karate" in a desperate battle for survival. But fighting alone, it was only a matter of time before she was beaten down.
"Two of them charged at me with their heads down and rammed me over," Ms Wedgwood told NZME.
A witness to the attack, Mike Small, says he was cycling through the park when he heard a blood-curdling scream - and saw what happened next.
A valiant rescuer ran in, stick in hand to drive the cows off. The woman managed to get to her feet and staggered to safety. But it came at a terrible cost to the daring hero.
"The stick helped for a bit and then the cows got him down," Ms Wedgwood says.
"They got him down. For whatever reason, more of them charged him. There was four of them and they were trampling him."
Mr Small says the attack left the victim "smashed up" and suffering horrific injuries.
"There were front feet off the ground raining down on him. They were head down and if they had horns they would have been goring him," he told NZME.
"He had a laceration about the size of a palm out of the back of his hamstring, just ripped off... and another couple of tennis ball sized chunks out of his shin.
"There's no nice way to put it: He got f**ked up."
The original victim called St John to send an ambulance, and they arrived on the scene minutes later.
Mr Small says they had to carry the victim away from the enraged animals so his injuries could be attended to.
A St John spokeswoman told NZME they attended the incident and a patient with moderate injuries was taken to Middlemore Hospital.
Newshub.
