Cows roam Kansas City highway after trailer plunged off overpass

Dozens of cattle spilled onto a street in Kansas City, Missouri, when a semitractor-trailer plunged off a highway overpass in the city’s downtown area and onto a car early Sunday, shutting down some roads and setting off a search for the traumatized animals that survived.

The accident occurred shortly before 3 a.m. and the roundup of surviving cattle continued into the early afternoon, authorities said.

The driver of the truck and the driver of a vehicle the truck landed on sustained minor injuries and were treated at local hospitals, they said.

Kansas City Police Sgt. Phil DiMartino said that between 45 and 60 of the 120 to 130 cattle carried by the truck were killed when the tractor-trailer overturned and fell from the westbound I-70 curve over SB I-35.

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Dozens of other cows fled the crash scene, resulting in other crashes and more calls to the police from the public, he said.

“It is believed all cows have now been accounted for,” DiMartino said in an updated press release Sunday afternoon.

The accident occurred on a day when the Kansas City Chiefs were hosting the Los Angeles Chargers in a National Football League game. Major disruptions in game traffic were not anticipated by authorities because of the wide publicity that the accident had received.

Some of the cattle had walked several miles before they were captured, said Kansas City Fire Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins.

“It was a pretty nasty accident,” Hopkins said.

Immediately after the accident, city authorities launched drones to track the cattle before a private company working together with the trucking company arrived with workers on horseback to round up the cattle, he said.

“More difficult has been getting the animals who did not survive,” he added.