Alive By Accident | Part One - Impossible Rescue

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

They weren't supposed to die...

...this way.

It all started with survivors...

…on my first visit to Iowa Farm Sanctuary,
our state's first and only vegan sanctuary

for farmed animals who have either been liberated
or escaped their fate in our food industry.

Not long after I arrived, IFS co-founder Shawn
received a call from her husband.

A semi truck carrying cows to slaughter had
flipped on a highway about 45 minutes away.

The Sanctuary's only trailer had a blown tire,
so they posted a desperate call for help on

Facebook as we took off for the crash site
in hopes of saving any survivors.

By the time we arrived, they'd been cleaning
up for over five hours already.

But three bodies still remained.

We could see the legs of one cow projecting
upwards from the top of the dumpster, filled

to the brim with carcasses.

Walking the path of the truck through the
woods, seeing cast off parts wrapped around

trees from the sheer impact of the descent,
the remaining ejected bodies of cows lying

bloodied in the brush, and the violently contorted
remains of the trailer

it was hard to believe anyone survived.

Information was scant and scattered.

We’d heard that the driver was at the hospital—pulled
from the wreckage in the river.

At least twenty cows had died from the impact
or were shot on site.

Some escaped into the woods, and we found
the body of one who had tried, but succumbed

to his internal injuries.

And there were eight survivors who’d been
caught, but their current location was unclear.

Shawn made call after call, tracing their
path, finally getting a tip that they were

being held at some back-roads location registered
to a trucking agency.

But we arrived to find it largely abandoned,
save for an idling empty livestock truck—

a striking contrast to the mangled remains of the one I’d been inside only

half an hour ago.

While Shawn spoke with the driver, I went
around back, finding a group of baby cows

huddled together in a holding pen.

Recently taken from their mothers, they were
likely awaiting transfer to either the veal

or beef industry—their impending slaughter
not a matter of if, but when.

A man—whom I’ll call Chad—had answered
the sanctuary’s plea for a trailer and met

us at the stop off.

It was clear within a few minutes that he
didn't quite understand what he'd volunteered for.

This is Iowa.

The center of America's industrial agriculture.

The first state to pass the modern Ag Gag
laws.

For many residents, the concept of a farmed
animal sanctuary isn’t just unheard of—

it’s incomprehensible.

But it would be a mistake—and one we activists
often make—to dismiss, or become combative

with people like Chad.

When Shawn got a new lead about an equally
vague location, the driver of the empty truck—familiar

with the area’s industry stops—offered
to escort us.

DRIVER: I’m headed up that way.

I’ll just put my turn signal on where you’re
supposed to turn.

SHAWN: Okay, perfect. We'll follow you. Thank you so much.

EMILY: Thanks!

And so we began our unlikely caravan: a livestock
truck leading two vegan activists rounded

out with a beef farmer and his trailer—all
off to save some cows.

And this time, we found them.

The man in charge—whom I’ll call Frank—was
a bit wary at first.

FRANK: You better get ahold of whoever these
cattle belong to.

In the system we've created, the eight surviving
cows were someone’s property.

And like any business, the “owner” has
to assess if they were financially worth recovering.

While Shawn made another call to what we hoped
was the company with legal ownership,

SHAWN: Have you guys filed a claim with your
insurance yet?

I spoke with Frank about the crash site.

FRANK: Yeah, I thought for sure he was dead.

He was one of the first people on the scene
and described how initially, they’d mistaken

the driver’s screams for just another cow
crying out in pain.

FRANK: They could—they could hear him going
“Get me out of here.”

They’d found him pinned in the wreckage,
his mouth filling with water from the river

as he called for help.

Finally, we were given the go-ahead.

SHAWN: Alright, thank you so much. Yep, buh-bye. Alright, let's do it.

FRANK: That’s right. Back ‘er up.

And there they were.

Shaken and terrified.

With no way of knowing that this final trip
of their very long day, had them bound for home.

Arriving at the Sanctuary, the residents gathered
to check out the newcomers.

And as the eight brothers stepped out of the
trailer, they took their first steps

as free individuals.

Liberated…by accident.

As we watched them huddle into the far corner,
shielding the most injured of the group—still

on high alert—Chad, the beef farmer who
answered the desperate call of some vegan

activists, making this entire rescue possible,
asked me a question I will never forget:

CHAD: They just live until they die, or what?

“Yeah,” I said.

“They live until they die.”

In order for us to be able to do what we do
to animals and maintain the image we have

of ourselves as good and decent people—animal
lovers, even—we’ve had to distance, disconnect,

and distract ourselves.

Construct systems so astoundingly convoluted,
that the concept of a chicken, pig, or cow

living until they die is literally beyond
our grasp.

Yet at the same time, we like to believe that
the animals we eat lived a good life.

That they were well-treated.

We shield ourselves from the violent deaths
they're destined for, shuttering them inside

metal boxes at which we dare not look too
closely, lest we meet their eyes and remember

that these…are individuals.

But when a truck flips, spilling their bodies
and blood across our path, we're confronted

not only with the horror of their suffering
and deaths, but also with the very thing we've

had to work so hard to suppress and avoid:
our compassion.

These accidents expose the depth of our disconnect
and lay bare our conflicting beliefs: people

wince at the news of a livestock truck crash,
mutter "those poor cows" or "how awful for

those pigs" without the slightest awareness
of the absurdity of their statements.

Because these very same people will later
consume the flesh and secretions of some other

"poor" cow, pig, or chicken who had the great
fortune of their truck making it to the slaughterhouse.

It all ended with survivors…

That accident that day—as horrifying as
it was, and as terrifying as it must have been

to experience—for these eight cows, it was
a miracle of sorts—their only chance at life.

Because had everything gone according to plan,
they’d have been killed, bled out and hacked

apart—their deaths no less brutal than their
brothers who died in the crash that day.

But like the other over 822,000 cows slaughtered
that day behind closed doors, they’d have

passed from existence without a single gasp
of shock or even quiet whisper of

“those poor cows.”

Find out what happened to the survivors in
part two.

To support the life-saving efforts of IFS,
visit IowaFarmSanctuary.org and to help Bite

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Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.