In late November we got toned to a barn on fire in Hardwick Vermont on Rte 15 East, as I get to the scene I quickly noticed that this was a large barn burning.... This ended up being a 6 alarm fire in this small town, it's unfortunate that the owners had 140 cows ""CHAINED"" to 8 X 8 inch lumber in the structure & also had 2 ponies..... The chains that were used were logging chains which are extremely thick & heavy duty, the only way we could free these cows was to use 3 Jaws of Life cutters to cut the chains & slap their asses to rush them out of the barn.... Unfortunately we were only able to rescue 7 cows from the barn, we were trying to get more when the 3 blast of the air horn were sent...
It was about 45 seconds after the horns were sent that the roof of the barn collapsed on to the remaining 133 cows & 2 ponies, I find it really messed up that the 7 cows that were rescued the Hardwick Police decided to shoot the cows 3 times in the head with their 4o caliber hand guns... The officers were quickly stopped when 2 firefighters & my self got between the officers & the cows, the officers hit 3 cows 3 times in the head with their guns.... I guess these officers do not know how to kill a cow by shooting them, each of the 3 cows were shot in the head 3 times & the shots did nothing but pissed the cows off even more!!!
I have been to many fatal events being on the Fire Department & as a driver for Morristown Rescue, do not get me wrong they all suck ass... It's kind of a sad thing to say but once you've been to a few you learn how to deal with it & it's not as bad as the 1st one you go to, this fire however was extremely hard to deal with since you could here the cows suffer as they burned in that fire & the smell was unbelievable!!!

If your department ever gets toned to a barn fire with livestock in the barn I would suggest that if you have any ""probie"" members that they do not go!!!!