A truck transporting at least 2,200 baby pigs has overturned on the road in Ohio with hundreds managing to escape. Firefighters, police, ambulance and volunteers all tried to catch the little porkers.
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A semi-tractor trailer carrying the animals crashed on Route 35 outside the town of Xenia, Ohio, on Monday evening. The truck, which was en route from South Carolina to Indiana, was on the westbound ramp when the driver lost control and veered into a guardrail, police said.
Assisting Xenia Twp with Accident on US 35 - 2200 piglets on board ....crews are chasing piglets all over the scene. pic.twitter.com/2JwIQaiUzv
— Xenia Fire Division (@XFDPIO) June 9, 2015
About 300 to 400 piglets were killed, dispatchers told local media. Meanwhile, another 1,500 of the plucky porkers were captured and then taken to the Greene County Fairgrounds.
Emergency crews in Greene County are trying to get the pigs to water! pic.twitter.com/00XzakjnIJ
— Frankie Jupiter WXIX (@FrankieJupiter) June 9, 2015
"They're in the woods, so I don't think we'll ever get all of them – I really, really don't," Xenia Township Fire Chief Dean Fox told WCPO Cincinnati news channel. "We'll try as hard as we can to retrieve all of them, but we probably won't retrieve them all."
There were two people in the truck, One of them, the passenger, suffered a minor injury and was taken to the hospital.
Multiple units search for baby pigs in wooded area of Green County after truck overturns @FOX19pic.twitter.com/7AA30zLvMS
— Frankie Jupiter WXIX (@FrankieJupiter) June 9, 2015
Fire emergency crews, police, ambulance and volunteers are helping to retrieve the escaped baby pigs.
"The help from local farmers meant a lot," Fox said. "If we didn't have the farmers here with their livestock trailers, there'd be pigs every place still."
Xenia pig truck crash: Semitrailer full of pigs overturns via http://t.co/2QNqTdNa8Y#Dukepic.twitter.com/98BoXz0vVL
— News Mayotte (@NewsMayotte) June 9, 2015
Xenia Fire Division tweeted that “crews are chasing piglets all over the scene.”
Police officers say they worry that the remaining runaway pigs may end up as a meal for local coyotes.
UPDATE: Local farmers brought in trailers, and the pigs are being loaded up. http://t.co/rjlSu9s8Pypic.twitter.com/aBHPk4aTvs
— WCPO (@WCPO) June 9, 2015