A runaway bull that smashed through a gate to escape a rodeo in Tasmania’s north yesterday has left a person in hospital with injuries.
A spectator at the Harveydale Rodeo event near Westbury told Pulse that the bull charged through the gate that led to a back paddock and straight into nearby paramedics and security staff during the event.
Event organiser Ian Brown from ID Rodeo Promotions Tasmania confirmed that a security guard was injured and taken to hospital following the incident.
He said staff managed to safely contain the bull in around 10 minutes after it ran “about 35 metres” from the arena.
“My brother let some other cattle out, they went up to [the bull] and after 5 minutes he (the bull) just turned around and went in with them,” Brown said.
Footage captured just before the escape shows a woman waving her hands at the bull from behind a fence, which Brown suggested might have contributed to the bull running out of the closed gate.
“Most people when they come along to these things they sort of know not to do things like that .. [they know] to just be still and they’ll go,” he said.
Crowds were initially turned away from the event shortly before it was supposed to start at 1pm due to wet weather, which Brown said was due to a ‘communication mix-up’.
“The judges thought that the arena conditions were not suitable, but they were suitable,” he said.
“We’ve been going for 40 years, we’ve ridden in that weather with like six inches of water on it.”
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“We spent a lot of money on making it a very good all weather arena.”
Ambulance Tasmania were unable to be reached for comment.
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