Two “aggressive” buffaloes fatally attacked a man from Oklahoma before confronting – and delaying – police and firefighters responded to the victim’s care, authorities announced on Monday.
Brad McMichael, 45, died on Friday from the injuries he suffered by the big animals he had bought at auction one day before, his family and police announced.
The call for emergency help arrived around 8:35 p.m., the local time in the small town of Jones, about 20 miles outside Oklahoma City, said Jones police chief Bryan Farrington, in a statement.
The first stakeholders, however, were “initially unable to reach the victim due to the aggressive behavior of animals”.
“Briefly, perhaps 3 (minutes),” Jones Police Deputy Chief Sony Nohmer said in NBC News, describing the delay in care.
The first stakeholders killed a buffalo of water, allowing them to go to McMichael, who “had undergone several deep lacerations that proved to be fatal,” said Farrington.
McMichael’s fiancée Jennifer Green said the delay was without consequences. He was declared dead on the scene.
“I was there,” said Green.
While the first stakeholders continued their work, a second buffalo of water “became more and more agitated and was a threat to emergency staff” and those on the spot which were also sent, according to the police press release.
Green said she thought McMichael was preparing water for animals when they attacked, and he would never have put himself unpretentious in a dangerous position.
“He would not have been relaxed and, as I said, he was very experienced,” said Green. “So we do not know how he entered this situation. But the original tanks were not yet full of water. So we are not sure he throws them to fill them with fresh water before his departure. But that’s when it happened.”
Farm management had been a “dream” which became reality for McMichael.
“Most are aware that we lost Bradley on Friday in a tragic accident,” Green said in a statement she published on the McMichael Farms Facebook page. “His farm was his dream, and I had the privilege of helping him for a little while.”
McMichael left his 21-year-old son Rylan, his ex-wife Amy Smith, a sister, a mother and a grandmother.
The land where McMichael raised cattle, lamb and goats has been in the family for at least three generations, said Smith and Green. Smith explained that the farm “was everything for him, that’s what he lived for.”
“Agriculture, our son and the community of Jones meant everything for him,” she added. “He was a man who was raised in this city and who was never going to leave.”
Green said that it had been overwhelmed by the desire goods coming from residents of Jones.
“I don’t know if [McMichael] knew that people loved him as much as they do, ”she said.
Janvi Bhojwani contributed.
