Alive by Accident | The Survivors

I want to tell you a story most unlikely—

a story of how a fatal crash saved eight lives.

You see, an accident, however brutal and horrifying,
is a miracle of sorts—

if you're on the way to your execution.

Meet the Liber8ed.

Part One of this documentary chronicled the accident that granted these eight cows

bound for slaughter

a chance at life,

and their subsequent rescue.

Now, in Part Two, you'll get to meet these survivors—
each an individual in their own right.

Iowa Farm Sanctuary co-founder Shawn has been 
with the boys

ever since that day we finally found them,

shaken and terrified

and brought them to their forever home.

So I thought it was only fitting

to have her narrate their stories.

Emily: Meet Max

Shawn: Of all the survivors, Max had the most 
blatantly obvious injuries—bleeding from his nose,

mouth, and right eye. Because of this, 
he was the first to go to the hospital,

making the two hour journey the day
after the accident.

Given his painfully visible wounds,

and certain there was additional internal 
trauma,

we were not optimistic about Max's future.

The swelling around his eye was so 
intense that the doctors were unable to perform

scans until a few days after his arrival at 
the clinic,

when it had gone down enough.

The scans revealed that Max sustained multiple 
fractures to his jaw and orbital bones

but due to his critical condition, he was not a candidate for surgery.

Dehydrated and unable to eat,
given the immense pain of his broken jaw,

Max still remained trusting and gentle,

quickly endearing himself with the veterinary staff,

who said he was like a really, really big dog.

After a few weeks, Max was cleared to come home

as long as we as we were able to
administer his eye and pain medications.

Due to the trauma he endured,

Max's face is paralyzed

evidenced by his drooping ear and heavy tongue when he eats.

We do not know what 
sort of, if any, vision he has in his right eye.

I gave Max his name after the movie character "Mad 
Max"

who was always a survivor of very traumatic experiences.

The pain and suffering our Max 
endured is undeniable,

yet he is the most loving, sweet,
trusting, beautiful creature.

His strength and forgiveness is admirable.

Emily: Meet Tucker.

Shawn: You can immediately tell Tucker

apart from his brothers because
of his long, curly hair.

After the accident, we 
noticed Tucker seemed to have some

difficulty eating and some of 
his teeth were visibly crooked.

At ISU (Iowa State University's Large 
Animal Hospital) , the doctors found some

pretty substantial damage inside Tucker's 
mouth that would have to heal on its own.

They informed us that over time, Tucker would 
likely loose the teeth knocked loose by the crash,

but that miraculously he'd not 
sustained any major injuries.

Tucker was named by Chelsea Wilde, in honor 
of her family.

Now home at the Sanctuary,
Tucker tends to hang back,

letting his brothers make sure
things are safe before he follows.

Still, as cautious as he is, Tucker will 
occasionally take treats from our hands.

He's an incredibly gentle being—a temperament 
perfectly complimented by his soft, fluffy coat.

Emily: Meet Charlie.

In Part One, Charlie’s brothers
protectively shielded him

upon their arrival at the Sanctuary.

They knew what wasn’t immediately apparent
to us at the time,

Charlie had sustained the most 
severe injuries of the group.

Shawn: Charlie was the only brown cow of the 
brothers—aptly named by a long time supporter

and friend of Iowa Farm Sanctuary, who was 
at the scene of the accident.

While it was obvious as he exited
the trailer the day of the accident

that Charlie's back leg was injured,

we would have never guessed that he'd sustained a 
shattered pelvis;

a devastating injury for a cow.

We made the two hour trip to bring Charlie and his 
brother Bhramena

to Iowa State University's Large Animal Hospital.

After X-raying Charlie, the veterinary
team informed us that due

to the nature and extent of his injuries, 
there was no way to repair his fractures.

Charlie was the first of the Liber8ed 
to whom we were forced to say goodbye.

We were able to find some some solace only 
in the fact that he was able to experience

being treated with love and
kindness by human beings

however briefly so,

before he passed.

Emily: Meet Bhramena,

whom I had the honor of naming

Bhramena is 
Sanskrit for "by mistake" or "accidentally."

Shawn: It was perfect because he quite 
literally came into our lives

by and due to an accident.

Like Charlie, Bhramena 
had obvious injuries to his back legs.

Both were lacerated down to the bone.

At ISU hospital, the doctors suspected

that Bhramena may have had a patch of dead bone

in one of his legs, caused by 
an interruption of blood supply from a fracture

Before they were able to surgically remove the 
bone, an infection had spread to both legs.

The ISU team explored every possible option

to give Bhramena a chance at
having any quality of life.

If only one leg had been injured, 
there may have had more options,

but with two legs completely compromised,

the veterinarians cautioned us
to start preparing for the worst.

Ten days after saying goodbye to Charlie,

we had to say another tearful 
farewell to our dear Bhramena.

We certainly wish we could have 
known these sweet boys better.

At the very least, they were able to pass with 
as much comfort, care and love as possible.

Emily: Meet Frank

Shawn: Unlike some of his brothers, Frank's 
injuries were painfully obvious:

his tail was completely severed during the accident and his lip was lacerated down to the bone.

While the wound on what remained of his tail had begun to heal on its own,

his lip required medical attention at the ISU clinic.

The doctors drained an abscess on 
his jaw and assured us that he was healing well.

Frank was named by my husband Jered—short for the moniker "Frank the Tank"

Of all his brothers, Frank is
certainly the most cautious.

Even a month and a half after the accident,

he still wouldn't let us anywhere near him—and 
who could blame him, given all he'd been through!

We've respected Frank's boundaries, 
letting him set his own terms.

Over time, he began allowing us
to come within arm's length

as long as we had his favorite treats on hand

and has now graduated to accepting
and relishing back rubs.

Emily: Meet Cooper

Shawn: Two days after the accident, after putting 
the other sanctuary residents to bed,

I went to check on the Liber8ed and thought that I'd found 
Cooper dead.

As I got closer, I noticed he was

still breathing—but it was incredibly labored. His 
eyes were rolled back and his stomach was bloated.

I struggled with whether I should let him go 
peacefully or jostle him enough to make him fight

I decided to pick his head 
up and rest it in my lap,

stroking his neck and comforting him in 
whatever decision he made.

He chose to fight.

He fought for the two hour drive to ISU and for an agonizing month thereafter.

Initially, Cooper had to have the inside 
toe of his back left leg amputated,

and miraculously made it through the procedure.

But while Cooper's surgical wound was 
healing well, a large laceration on the

other toe wasn't responding to antibiotics, and 
X-rays revealed breakdown in the remaining bone.

The veterinarians continued to monitor his status, 
but with Cooper's compromised mobility, the

bone continued to deteriorate and the infection spread to his joint.

We were given two options:

amputate the other toe of his hoof, which would require a prosthetic,

or perform an operation that
had never been done before

surgically inserting metal rods in
Cooper's leg right

above his ankle and building a cast extending past 
the bottom of his foot with a prosthetic hoof,

so that when he walked, he'd be 
putting weight on rods, not his foot.

With the doctors' guidance, 
we chose the second option,

with amputation remaining a last resort.

The vets also performed a bone graph to the compromised bone.

Cooper made it through surgery, and
we were hopeful for his recovery.

Two weeks later, when removing his 
cast, pus poured out from Coopers leg.

The vets found an infection where 
the bone graph was harvested

and scans showed the deterioration had 
progressed to other bones in his leg.

We were told that at this point, 
his injuries were catastrophic.

He was in immense pain, despite medication,

and there was no chance of recouping the damage that had been caused by the infection.

He was not responding to antibiotics
due to an immunity

built up from all the antibiotics so-called "food animals" are fed throughout their abbreviated lives.

Cooper suffered through,
fought, and endured so much

even a surgery that no other bovine ever had.

Yet after all of that, we 
lost him to an infection.

An infection that should have been treatable.

While Cooper escaped his fated
slaughter that day on the highway,

his life was still 
ultimately taken by our food industry.

Emily: Meet Django

Shawn: Decidedly the leader of the group.

Django is usually found keeping watch
over his brothers

and is always the first to come running for food, water and head rubs when he sees us.

I call him black beauty.

He's absolutely gorgeous

with the deepest eyes, the cutest mop 
on his head and always a swagger to his step.

A couple who supports and visits IFS every 
chance they get, named Django

after a Quentin Tarantino's movie centering
around a freed slave in the American South,

because Django too is now free

of the industry that bred, confined, and 
shipped him and his brother off to their deaths.

Emily: Meet Rocco

Shawn: Unlike the rest of his brothers,

Rocco somehow managed to survive the accident 
without sustaining any major injuries, and thus

was the only one of the Liber8ed who never visited 
the hospital.

Over a period of a month and a half, Rocco watched his brothers be loaded into our trailer

and taken away, some never to return.

Rocco formed a tight bond with his brother Django,

and while he didn't like it when we took 
anyone to ISU, the day we loaded his best

friend into the trailer to join the remaining 
survivors at the hospital, Rocco began crying

out so fiercely that we feared he'd take 
down our fencing trying to get to Django.

We moved Rocco to a large stall, but 
upon arriving back home after a few hours

found that he'd busted his way out.

When we finally brought Django home five days later,

Rocco, who'd not been shy in displaying 
his displeasure with his brothers' absence,

began skipping and bucking around the pasture 
in the most beautiful happy-cow dance.

Rocco—derived from Italian and Germanic elements meaning "rest"

was named by IFS supporter Kris G, ( aka the Sentient Beast.)

With his brother's home 
and Django stepping back into his leadership role,

Rocco relaxed dramatically.

He's still learning that some humans can be trusted

a lesson that would be understandably 
difficult to accept when all you've

ever known from our species 
is fear, pain, and heartbreak.

Emily: If it wasn't for that accident 
that day, these boys would have reached

their intended destination as planned and 
been killed, bled out and hacked apart.

This fate is harder for us to stomach once we've 
learned their names and heard their stories.

However, it's vital to realize that these eight 
are no more important than those not so fortunate.

It is not our acknowledgement of their 
individuality that gives them value.

They had value before the crash 
hurled their bodies into our path.

They had value before they were given names;

and the more than 822,000 cows whose trucks
made it to a slaughterhouse that day

They too had value;

They too had stories.

They too were individuals.

To support the life-saving efforts 
of IFS, visit IowaFarmSanctuary.org

and to help Bite Size Vegan 
create more content like this,

visit BiteSizeVegan.org/Support.