The last 10 minutes of the Sisters Rodeo in Oregon on Saturday got a little extra “Western” as onlookers became a part of the 1,400-pound bull Party Bus’ evening performance. To top it off, Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. was playing in the arena, with the crowd heartily singing along.
Bull riding is typically the last event of the evening and one of the most popular. And when Party Bus jumped the arena fence and began bowling through spectators, first responders initially thought people were screaming over a good ride.
Then, the call came over the radio saying, “A bull’s out.” Not two seconds later, that bull ran past the Rural Fire Protection District’s booth.
“It’s like a pickup truck going through a crowd, obviously potential injuries that could happen,” Thad Olsen, Fire Chief for the Cloverdale Rural Fire Protection District, told FOX 12. “When you take a look at the entirety of the situation, we were very lucky.”
You can see the video for yourself here, including people getting tossed into the air by the animal:
Before rodeo staff were able to wrangle the bull, three-year-old Party Bus rammed his way past onlookers, injuring three in the crowd, including one woman who broke her nose and another who broke her arm. Another woman was flipped through the air, surprisingly suffering zero injuries.
Brand 44 N, a breakfast and brunch restaurant in Terrebonne, posted an image of the woman having breakfast the next day to their Facebook. The two women who went to the hospital were also already back home by Sunday.
Luckily, as Party Bus made his way through the concession area, few people were around. The five-day Sisters Rodeo is a popular event in Oregon and is known as The Biggest Little Show in the World, bringing onlookers from around the nation.
Two other people suffered injuries during the escape while trying to capture the bull, including a Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office deputy, who injured his knee.
“He’s very athletic, as we know now,” Mike Corey, from the stock contractor hired by the Sisters Rodeo, Corey & Lange Rodeo, told The Oregonian.
Sadly, the stock contractors also indicated that the party is also over for Party Bus, who comes from a long line of rodeo bulls. The bull will go on to sire more rodeo bulls, but his bucking career is likely over.
“We’ve taken questions on, ‘are they going to put the bull down?’ And absolutely not,” Vice President of the Sisters Rodeo Brian Witt told FOX 12. “I think people need to understand, this isn’t a grizzly bear, and we also don’t put down our three-year-old children for making mistakes, so this is a bull that will go back home. They’ll work with it.”