Bull attacks, injures owner after going on the loose in New Jersey

A run-in with a bull sent it's owner to the hospital after the bull was seen trying to mount the owner's car and charge police vehicles.

Police were dispatched to Sparta, New Jersey, after receiving calls around 3 p.m. Friday that a cow was approaching vehicles on the roadway, police said in a statement.

Wendy McDermott, the animal's owner, called police and told them that she was headed to help coax the bull back to it's enclosure, though it is unclear how it got out in the first place.

Once she arrived at the scene along with the police officer, the bull began following McDermott's car, but that doesn't appear to have gone smoothly.

Officer Arlene Lippencott told police that she saw the "bull bumping Mrs. McDermott’s vehicle and trying to mount it several times," according to the statement from Sparta Township Police.

The police statement details that McDermott got out of her car in an effort to get the bull back into the gate but "the bull turned on her and started attacking her, throwing her around. Mrs. McDermott was screaming that the bull was going to kill her and needed to be shot."

McDermott was able to get into a police patrol vehicle when Lippencott distracted the bull, but then the bull attempted to charge another patrol vehicle that was on the scene.

At that point, two other responding officers "put down" the bull.

McDermott was transported to a local hospital for her injuries, and the Sparta police reported that she received numerous stitches to her head and had lacerations and bruising on her upper body.

According to McDermott, this isn't the first time that the bull became violent with humans.

The same bull had recently attacked McDermott's husband "but it was no way as serious as this attack," she told police.