When Michaela Suter, a University of Wyoming graduate, heard a cattle trailer with 84 head had overturned near downtown Billings on Friday, she did what any rodeo person would do.
She called in the cowboys.
“When they shut down the whole lane of traffic and there was live cattle out there, it was like, ‘Holy cow, what can we do about this?’” Suter told Cowboy State Daily.
The crash happened right outside MetraPark, where the Northern International Livestock Exposition, or NILE, was hosting its annual stock show and rodeo.
Suter, office manager for NILE, estimated 2,500 people were inside the arena at the time of the crash, between two sales, two big shows and the Riggin Masters bareback bronc riding event happening that afternoon.
“If it’s going to happen any day, I guess this is a good day for it,” Suter said of the crash. “We were able to help them.”
‘Saddled Up’
As Billings firefighters and Yellowstone County sheriff’s deputies converged on the intersection, Suter dispatched another brand of backup.
“Our pickup men from Riggin’ Masters rode down there as quick as possible,” Suter said. “We were setting up for our Riggin’ Masters event and they were setting up already.”
While a stock trailer rollover on a main street isn't standard business, trading the arena floor for downtown pavement didn't rattle the crew, Suter said.
“They just saddled up and came down to help with whatever,” Suter said. “Those pickup guys deal with a lot. They’re the best in the biz and we were lucky to have them on the ground.”
The NILE cowboys weren’t the only livestock experts in the area when the trailer rolled.
Scott Handerson, one of the owners of Agri-Best, an animal-feed store in Billings, told Cowboy State Daily he happened to be driving by the intersection moments after the crash.
“It happened a stoplight or two in front of me,” Handerson said.
Handerson’s store sits just a few blocks from the intersection. When he got there, he called the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office and offered to bring a portable corral system he owned, and deputies told him to go ahead.
He went back with his brother-in-law and fellow Agri-Best owner Kevin Haidle to set up the panels around the truck. Once the Billings Fire Department sawed open the trailer, the cattle walked out into a pen in the middle of the street.
Haidle and Handerson said the operation was pretty smooth, with just one small mishap.
“One of the calves actually did get out of the trailer before the corral system was put up,” Haidle said. “So a couple guys on horses went and rounded that calf up by the railroad tracks.”
‘A Plan for the Cattle’
Billings Fire Department Incident Commander Darrek Mitchell told Cowboy State Daily the two horsemen who roped the runaway calf were the pickup men sent by Suter. They were among several livestock professionals who came from the NILE to help clear the street, he said.
“We had guys, I guess I could say cowboys, who were on their horses with their lassos,” Mitchell said. “We weren’t the resident experts in how to wrangle. We were the experts in how to mitigate the truck accident and open it up to get the cattle out.”
The one loose calf was secured quickly, Mitchell said, and only one cow died in the aftermath. Mitchell guessed that cow suffocated, which was a better outcome than in a similar incident in Miles City in 2025.
“They had to euthanize probably five to seven because of injuries sustained by the cattle,” Mitchell said. “This time, we only had one and we didn’t have to euthanize.”
Mitchell said the department approached the accident as they would any other. Safety came first, he said, and property came second, in this case 84 head of young steers he estimated were worth about $200,000.
“When it comes down to having a tractor-trailer full of live cattle, that changes our dynamic a little,” Mitchell said. “But our concern first and foremost is to protect lives. With this one, we had to take care of the driver and the driver was OK. Then, of course, we had to come up with a plan for the cattle.”
‘Before Rush Hour Hit’
While Mitchell worked to track down the equipment the department would need to contain and move the cattle, it began showing up as fast as the extra help had.
The portable corral Agri-Best brought was a type Mitchell had never seen before and definitely not one the department had on hand, he said.
Once the cattle were inside it, ranchers from the NILE were getting ready to bring their trailers over from MetraPark to haul them away, but two local livestock yards volunteered trailers that could carry the the herd all at once.
From the moment the trailer tipped to the final cow being loaded and the intersection reopened, Mitchell said the entire operation took right around two hours.
“Everything lined up really well,” Mitchell said. “Everything was out of the way right before rush-hour traffic hit.”
‘Where Not To Go’
The help from NILE came at a cost to its own schedule. The two-hour standstill delayed the NILE Merit Heifer program, a live animal scholarship that helps 12- to 16-year-olds start their own cattle herds.
“Our whole mission is to raise scholarships, and that’s one way we do it,” Suter said. “And our auctioneer was stuck in traffic.”The auction started late as a result, but Suter said the delay was worth it if NILE members with hands-on livestock experience could help the agencies working the scene.
The Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office told Cowboy State Daily it has not yet released a cause for the crash. Suter said she suspects a driver with more experience behind the wheel might have avoided the rollover altogether.
“They should know that that corner’s not good,” Suter said.
Suter said she heard plenty of livestock wreck stories during her college years, but none involved a semi hauling tens of thousands of pounds of live cattle trying to thread the busiest, tightest intersection in town.
“I went to school in Wyoming so it happened a bit,” Suter said. “But usually the guys were a bit more experienced and knew where to go and where not to go.”
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
