Husband stops on the side of the road to help neighbor... but never could have predicted it'd end with him in hospital with broken bones and ribs
A Utah man has landed in the hospital after he stopped at the road side to help a stranger who had two cows and a stray bull in his yard.
The Good Samaritan, Mark Sargent, 44, from Newcastle, had been attempting to help the man herd the animals back into a pen until its owner could come by and collect them.
Initially the pair were able to herd two cows off the property, but it was when Sargent used his truck in an attempt to push a bull towards the gate at the end of a driveway that trouble began.
Sargent, who has a background in working with cattle and used to be a bull rider, left the protection of his truck and tried to herd the bull out of the front gate himself.
Mark Sargent, from Newcastle, Utah, had been attempting to help another man herd two cows and a bull into a pen until its owner could come and collect it when it suddenly charged at him
Sargent used his truck in an attempt to push a bull towards a gate at the end of the property. It was then that trouble began. Mark Sargent, seen right, with wife Hailey
He managed to get the animal through the gate but was not prepared for what followed as the bull suddenly turned around and charged at him.
The angry bull threw him about 15 feet into the air and then at least 25 feet down a hill, breaking his pelvis and hip in the process while also bruising several ribs.
Sargent is now in hospital and will have to undergo a hip replacement after doctors became concerned that his broken bones might move and slice open a major artery.
The family have set up a GoFundMe which has so far raised $5,000 which will go towards Sargent's mounting medical bills.
'I've been around cattle most of my life, so that's why I stopped off and I helped. I'm not a stranger around livestock,' Sargent said to KSL.com.
'It just happened so quick that I couldn't do anything about it other than protect my head. That's basically what was going through my mind is protect my head because if he had hit me directly on my head, he would've killed me. So I took most of the blow in my hip and my side area,' he explained.
Sargent says that he is not sure how the cattle came to be on the property in the first place or why their owner wasn't helping to retrieve them.
He felt that since he was passing, the family man who is a father to a teenage daughter, might as well help out.
Sargent used to be a bull rider and felt that he could handle the situation
Mark Sargent seen with wife Hailey Sargent and their daughter in one of their Facebook photos
Sargent was keen to point out that he was not gored by the bull as the animal did not have any horns (file photo)
'I'm just irritated because, obviously, it's not a very nice animal and there's little kids running around there. If that would have happened to one of them kids, it would've killed them.'
The bull's owner was eventually tracked down and the bull was removed from the area.
The Iron County Sheriff confirmed that a one man had been 'gored by a bull' while two other men had also been involved in a fight, but there were scant details.
While waiting for an ambulance to arrive, Sargent said he saw the property owner and the cattle owner get into a physical fight.
He said that he was not what the fight was about or how it got resolved, as he was preoccupied with his 'very painful' injuries.
'I was trying to get up and get to the truck and make myself as comfortable as possible, which did not happen,' he said.
But Sargent was keen to point out that he was not gored by the bull, as the animal did not have any horns.
