Cow wranglers’ rodeo skills came into real-life action after I-80 cattle hauler crash

By Jackie Kostek

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    SHERIDAN, Illinois (WBBM) — A driver who crashed a cattle hauler on Interstate 80 near Joliet this week has been charged with driving under the influence – and is also in the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

At the scene near Houbolt Road, the traffic jam on Tuesday lasted for hours after more than a dozen steers roamed free on the highway. We even saw a bull briefly stare down CBS 2’s Jermont Terry and photographer B.J. Johnson before running into the woods – only to be lassoed later.

CBS 2’s Jackie Kostek explained how suburban cattle catchers succeeded in wrangling up all the cattle. And Kostek got on a horse herself for the occasion.

It was around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday when Spirit Farms in Sheridan, Illinois got an unusual call from Illinois State Police.

“I was actually on the clock working,” said Spirit Farms employee and rodeo champion Lane Howard. “John called me and said there’s some cattle out, and we need to get there as fast as possible.” 

A livestock truck had crashed on I-80. Seventeen steers, or neutered bulls, were loose.

“I think we were on the road within 10 minutes,” said Spirit Farms owner John Stewart.

ISP called several groups into action Tuesday, but there may have been no group better prepared than that from Spirit Farms. Owner Stewart’s two high school daughters are the top two all-around rodeo girls in the state.

“When we got out of the truck, we were all there,” said Ellie Stewart. “They were up against the guardrail, and we were like, ‘OK we’re here. Like, just calm down, and just do what you know how to do.”

The effort involved 11 people, five horses, four pickup trucks, a stock trailer and a semi-trailer.

In rodeo, it’s all about speed – how quickly a rider can rope cattle. But in a real-life like when the cattle are roaming I-80, the crew had to slow it way down.

“It takes it to a different level,” said John Stewart. “It gets real.”

“You just have to be gentle with them,” Howard said. “So if you rush it, everything is just going to go panic mode.”

And of course, a lot of people would likely be afraid upon being confronted by a 1,200- to 1,500-pound animal, knowing the kind of damage such an animal could inflict. But not so for the people at Spirit Farms.

“That’s home for us,” said Ellie Stewart.

But Ellie said getting called into real-life action was a revelation.

“We’ve been doing this forever, and we trail-ride and we rope calves – and that’s all fun for us, and we compete with it,” she said. “But yesterday, we got to put it – like, we realized why we do it. We do it to help.”

So did Ellie feel like a hero on Tuesday?

“I mean, a little bit, when we were done,” she said.

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