Joao Maria de Souza went to bed, with his wife, Wednesday night, not knowing that he would never wake up.
Souza, a 45 year old Brazilian man, was killed Wednesday night when a cow fell through the roof of his home, and landed on him while he was sleeping. The cow just barely missed his wife, and she had no apparent injuries.
The, one ton,cow was said to have escaped from a nearby farm and was grazing along a hillside above Souza’s home, in the small town of Caratinga. The roof of the home was reportedly very weak, covered in asbestos, and could have never held the weight of the cow.
When Souza was taken to a nearby hospital, he was conscious and in fairly good condition. His family believes that, what ultimately caused his death, was him having to wait so long to see the doctor and receive treatment. He apparently had to wait several hours before he was examined. Souza died, in the hospital, on Thursday from internal bleeding.
“Being crushed by a cow is the last way you expect to leave this earth,” his brother-in-law told a local newspaper. “But in my view it wasn’t the cow that killed our João, it was the unacceptable time he spent waiting to be examined.”
There have been two other reported cases of cows falling through homes, in Brazil, within the past three years. No one was home in the first incident, and the other cow fell through the roof, barely missing two small children. There were no injuries in either of these cases.