Co-Ed Sues Over Bovine Distemper
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PORTLAND, Me. — A former University of Maine student is suing the school for failing to protect her from a cow with a “dangerous disposition.”
Andrea Pizzo believes officials in the school’s livestock management department should have known that the Jersey heifer that attacked her in the spring of 1991 had a personality problem.
“This cow had had a history of bothering people,” Pizzo, who was an animal sciences student at the time of the incident, told a reporter Friday. “I’m not talking about all cows, but this one cow was a problem.”
The lawsuit filed Thursday in Cumberland County Superior Court seeks unspecified damages for knee and wrist injuries Pizzo claims she suffered when the 400-plus-pound bovine head-butted her into the wall of its pen.
Pizzo, 23, contends that her “pleas for help went unanswered for several minutes,” until another student helped drive the heifer away with a rake.
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