Cow-hitting good Samaritan arrested for OWI
Helen McCollum says she was just trying to help a guy staggering down the highway after he had hit a cow in the middle of the road.
Instead, she was arrested on a drunken driving charge after hitting the same cow, which did not survive.
"I was helping this guy and I was busted," McCollum called The Capital Times to say today. "This is why people don't stop and help others anymore."
The Dane County Sheriff's Office reported that Michael Geisler, 43, Edgerton, hit the cow standing in the middle of Wisconsin 73 shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday morning. The accident happened near County B. Geisler was slightly injured, the sheriff's office said, but refused to be taken to the hospital. He was not charged with any traffic violations.
McCollum, 50, who bartends on Tuesday nights at the Utica Bar -- just down the road on County B from the intersection -- lives in Cambridge and was going home after closing up for the night when she came upon the accident scene.
"I'm driving along and I see this car with the airbags hanging out the windows," she said. "While I'm looking at the car, I ran over the cow he just hit."
McCollum stopped her car, got out and went to see how Geisler was.
"I put him in my car and called 911," she said.
McCollum said she had one drink after work -- a glass of Dr. McGillicuddy schnapps -- which resulted in her arrest for driving while intoxicated. If convicted, it would be her second.
"I put out some snacks that night for my customers, to thank them for their cards and phone calls because my dad died last week," she said. "I wasn't drinking at all all evening. After I cleaned up the bar after closing, I had one glass of Doctor to mellow out."
She wasn't too mellow after the Sheriff's Office deputy arrived.
"The deputy smelled it on my breath so he made me do the whole test for drunk driving," she said.
The test was going along OK until she had to do the straight walk.
"I was shaking," McCollum said. "I just ran over a big-assed cow."
She passed the breathalyzer test the first time it was administered, she said, but policy dictates a second test a short while later because deputies are supposed to observe subjects for 20 minutes.
"I blew a .11," she said, and a blood-alcohol content of .08 percent is legally drunk in Wisconsin.
"They handcuffed me and took me away."
The thing that bothers McCollum the most is getting busted after being a good samaritan.
"My car has a damaged undercarriage, but the guy at the body shop said I could have driven it after hitting the cow," she said. "I see this guy, hurt, walking in a daze out in the road, and I get busted. They didn't even ask me how I was.
"This is why people don't stop anymore," she said. "They are scared to stop because of what might happen if they do."
When McCollum called 911, she said the dispatcher didn't believe she hit a cow.
"They told me I was the second person to call in to report a cow in the road that day," she said.
McCollum has to appear in court on May 19 on her drunken driving charge.
Google Maps
The accident with the cow occured at County Highway B and Wisconsin 73.
