It started out like any other day.

I was unloading some fresh hay for our bull, Cash. He usually just comes up and rubs on you and wants you to pet him. So when he walked around me, I didn’t think anything about it. 

But it was like someone lit a match under Cash’s tail. He lowered his head and came at me. He’s just shy of a ton. He kept pushing me off my feet with his head, and I could only backpedal. After he shoved me about 50 yards, he flipped me upside down and smashed me into a tree. Then he backed up and started pawing the ground like he was going to come at me again. I finally was able to grab my gun and shoot the ground, which scared him off. 

My wife, Madeline, who was pregnant at the time, called 911. When we got to the hospital, they said I was bleeding internally, and they operated right away. My intestines were completely ruined. They took out my small intestine, a portion of my large intestine, my gallbladder and my spleen before I was flown to Cleveland Clinic. 

Dr. Vaidya1  put us immediately at peace. He told Madeline, “I can fix him.”

About three months later, I underwent a rare intestinal transplant at Cleveland Clinic that saved my life. 

 

A year later, Caleb Brooks was back to his farm duties in Alabama, as well as his full-time job as a sheriff’s investigator. He’ll take medicine for the rest of his life to prevent organ rejection — a small price to pay for a lifetime of baseball with his two sons. 

Note

  1. Anil Vaidya, MD, is a Cleveland Clinic surgeon.

When a bull charged Caleb Brooks, his life changed forever.