By BRIAN TILLEY

Published at 09:45, Friday, 30 July 2010

A MAN has been left battered and bruised after being attacked by a herd of cattle on a public footpath near the Roman Wall.

Jim Duncan (51) was walking his dog near Heavenfield on the Military Road on Wednesday when he spotted the cows with their calves.

He put his dog on the lead, but when the cows approached, the dog barked at them and the cows charged.

Although the dog fled, Mr Duncan was knocked to the ground.

His wife, Lorraine, said:“They rammed into him and trampled him on the ground; it took all his strength to get away.”

Mr Duncan managed to call his wife on his mobile phone, and she drove the short distance from their home at Brunton Crossroads to collect him.

She said: “I got there within minutes, and found him badly bruised, particularly round his head, and he was badly winded.

“The next day, he had a bruise/cut on the inside of his thigh the exact shape of a cow’s hoof!”

However, Mr Duncan declined to go to hospital, having been rushed there by ambulance just five weeks before, following a car accident.

Mrs Duncan said: “He said he had seen enough of hospitals – but now we are dreading what will happen next, because these things tend to come in threes!”

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk