Rodeo bull bolts from Utah fair, attacks mother, brother of Lt. Gov Deidre Henderson

Jul 29, 2023

Submit

Δ

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

A rodeo bull bucked its rider in the midst of a show at a Utah county fair and broke free from the arena — making a beeline for a mother-and-son duo who just so happened to be related to the state lieutenant governor.

Republican Deidre Henderson said that the Utah County Fair in Spanish Fork turned “ugly” when the rogue Texas Longhorn busted out of its cage and charged her mom and brother in the parking lot.

The pair were “chased, knocked down & stepped on” while trying to enjoy an evening at the annual event, Henderson wrote Friday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“They’re pretty shaken (and I’m pretty pissed).”

According to Jeremy Hulse, he and his mother, who is in her 70s, attended the rodeo to watch family members compete in barrel racing.

They had left the event early and were walking in the parking lot when they saw the plowing toward them.

“All of a sudden I just saw this freaking bull just bucking right toward us,” Hulse told KUTV 2News.

“He was just going nuts.”

Hulse was able to help his mother into the cab of the truck in the nick of time, but not before his foot was stomped on and he was hit by the bull’s bucking back end.

Luckily, they both walked away with just cuts and bruises, according to Henderson.

The bull was being run in the rodeo in the moments before the attack, but managed to buck its rider and crash through a corral gate, which allowed for a clear shot into the parking lot, Utah Country Sherriff’s Office spokesperson Sergeant Spencer Cannon told The Post.

Though there have been instances of a bull breaking loose, Cannon called the anima’s escape at the highly-secure county fair venue a “freak accident.”

The bull ran amok in the parking lot for no more than four minutes before the rodeo staff corralled the beast and brought it back inside.

The incident was over so quickly that police were not alerted until after it was back in its stall, Cannon said.

The sergeant added that the high-spirited animal was instinctively looking for an escape and was likely not intentionally targeting Hulse and his mother

“The bull was being a bull,” he said.

“It’s not a wild animal, but it is not certainly a tame animal. It’s not a pet.”

Though Henderson is “pissed” over the incident, her brother said he was grateful that he and his mother escaped with such minor injuries.

“Definitely in retrospect,” Hulse said, “[I] don’t know how the hell we got out of there.”

Just days earlier, Henderson shared photos on X of her mother on an outdoor family excursion.

“Meet my cute mom who out-hiked all of us today,” Henderson wrote.