Woman Suffers 10 Broken Ribs and Bruised Lungs After Being ‘Crushed’ by Cows

A Scottish woman survived being “crushed” by a herd of cattle in the Scottish Highlands in August, according to the BBC.

Mary-Jane Parker, 61, and her dog, Lola, were hiking in Newtonmore when a herd of cows, which were “hidden behind a bank of high ground,” approached her. 

She told the outlet that she didn’t see them until she “skirted the mound,” and was just within “feet away from them.” Within seconds, she was surrounded by the cattle, and one of the cows “put its head down and started thumping the ground.”

“I was terrified. I couldn’t escape,” she said, noting that Lola was “panicked” and got out of her collar and ran from the cows immediately. 

She was then “crushed” between two of the cows, and the cows swept her off her feet and carried her between them “as they charged off.” She recalled being thrown to the ground as her backpack strap got caught on one of the cow’s legs, causing the cow to drag her across the ground.

“I thought I was done for out there,” she said. “I thought that was where it would all end for me.”

But the encounter didn’t stop there; Parker said she was then “tossed up in the air, then crashed back to earth,” she said, adding that the cows didn’t move. 

While on the ground, she spotted her phone around 25 feet away, per STV News. She described not being able to reach her phone as “torture” because “at any moment, one could kill me – even by accident – the danger was far from over.” She sent an SOS alert on her Garmin tracking device, which was in her backpack.

She was “terrified” they would trample her again, so she “decided to play dead – keep as still as I could and hope they moved away without hurting me further,” she told the BBC.

“I lay still, pretending to be dead,” she recalled of the 45 minutes she remained still.

But as she waited, she could still feel the cows near her, “I could feel one of the animals snuffling at my head,” she said. “A second was licking my bleeding wounds while a third kept pawing at my foot.” 

At that point, she realized she had sustained a wound to her left calf muscle, which “was ripped open from knee to ankle and the muscle was hanging out,” she told BBC.

“I put my right leg over the open wound to try and protect it,” she told STV News.

However, she knew how important it was to stay awake, “Keep holding on, don’t go to sleep, don’t lose consciousness…Keep breathing,” she repeated to herself. “Help will come.”

As she stayed still on the ground, fellow hikers chased the cattle away. Quickly, they came to her side and confirmed that Lola was safe. Just minutes later, police and paramedics arrived in response to her SOS alert. 

The first responders took her to an ambulance off the hill, and a doctor and advanced nurse practitioner found her injuries were so “extensive” that an ambulance wouldn’t get her to a hospital “in time.”

“I was aware I was surrounded by wonderful people who were all intent on saving my life,” she recalled. “But it might not be enough.”

After she heard a Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance helicopter arriving and landing, she “started to feel hope again,” she told STV News.

SCAA transported her to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, and she underwent surgery. Parker sustained several injuries: 10 broken ribs, a broken sternum, a broken right hand, major leg trauma, bruised lungs, blood in the chest wall and multiple bruises to the head, face and body.

“The pain was crippling,” she said of the various injuries. “I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

She has since undergone multiple surgeries, including skin grafts, but was discharged 10 days after the incident.

“I’m so grateful every day when I wake up and know I am still alive,” she said. “What a gift it is to be given that second chance.”

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PEOPLE reached out to Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance for comment.