Members of our Mine Rescue Team were called out at the request of Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service to provide advice on a rather problematic technical rescue. Not exactly our usual call-out, but a Belted Galloway cow had managed to get into a mine adit and become wedged, being stuck for a week before the alarm was raised.

The cow was wedged 20ft inside the low adit and couldn’t reverse out without bending its legs, with its back end rubbed raw where it had been trying to back into the adit roof for a week. With some struggle the cow’s rear legs were bent such that it could be pushed under the low roof, and with a rope attached to its legs it could be pulled and pushed backwards and downwards through the confined space. It was hot and with little air, but the efforts of several firefighters and a local farmer the cow could be slid backwards and out of the adit, with team members keeping its head out of water and off the rocks. Once out, a further joint effort saw the stricken beast dragged onto the farmer’s trailer for further assessment.