A retired teacher is lucky to be alive after being trampled by a herd of cows and left in a coma with 34 broken ribs.
Pip Peacock, 63, was walking her dog Buster when she was suddenly attacked by one of the animals without warning in Derbyshire’s Peak District.
She fell to the ground before the rest of the herd approached and began kicking and rolling over her as she lay helplessly injured in a field.
The walker tried screaming for help to no avail, until two passing men and a woman rushed over bravely chased the cattle away.
Buster, a 13-year-old black Labrador, sadly died during the harrowing attack leaving Pip heartbroken.
Now she has spoken out about the ordeal for the first time and wants to raise awareness of the potential dangers of walking near cows, especially with dogs.
Despite losing Buster and Pup feels no ill-feeling about the incident and says it was ‘just an unfortunate event’.
After making a miraculous recovery she is now trying to raise funds for the Air Ambulance Service by walking 1,000 miles during 2021.
She is collecting donations online as a way of saying thank you to the people who saved her, and has already completed 200 miles so far.
Recalling the incident in September 2019, Pip explained how Buster was on a very short lead by her knees and that he was used to walking in fields of cows.
She doesn’t remember dropping the lead or buster running away before one of the cows suddenly came for her.
Pip added: I tried to shout for help but had no voice. I put my hands over my head and recited Psalm 23; ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.’
‘I felt very peaceful as my faith means I am not afraid of death.’
She then suddenly heard the voices of two men and a woman who chased the cows away, despite fearing they could also be attacked.
The men used their sticks and camera tripods to shoo away the cattle while the woman stayed and talked to Pip, from Bakewell, Derbyshire.
Once the cows had gone, she says she could overhear a man on the phone telling someone her dog had been killed.
Pip added: ‘He was very placid and loved by everyone – even some people who didn’t usually like dogs.
‘He came to us at 18 months from the Dog’s Trust and we couldn’t have asked for a better dog.’
An air ambulance attended the scene at Magpie Mine, near Sheldon, and flew her to straight to Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital.
She suffered 34 breaks in her ribs, a broken collarbone, broken shoulder ligaments, and a broken finger, as well as serious wounds to her left leg and right knee.
Surgeons had to use 17 titanium plates to repair her rib cage and her husband was warned the trauma to her body meant she could die.
Having spent eight days in an induced coma and a further two weeks in hospital, Pip says she is making ‘good progress’ in her recovery but still struggles with pain from time to time.
Thanking rescuers for their efforts, she said if it wasn’t for Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland Air Ambulance she might not be alive today.
The crew flew her to hospital in just 10 minutes when a road journey from the remote location would have taken about 45 minutes.
She added: ‘My injuries were so serious I probably would not have survived if I had gone in a land ambulance to hospital.
‘The policeman who went to tell my husband what had happened said I might not live even though I had been taken by helicopter.’
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