Another Smithfield Foods Accident—74 Pigs Suffer for Hours by the Roadside

An injured pig collapses on a tarp that covers others left maimed and dead when a Smithfield Foods transport truck crashed.

On October 18, a Smithfield Foods pig truck overturned on Virginia Route 10—at least the fourth such crash in southeastern Virginia since the hideous March 2004 incident that left numerous, terribly injured pigs screaming in a field as incompetent Smithfield employees struggled with faulty "captive-bolt guns" to kill them.

The truck, loaded with 185 pigs bound for a Smithfield slaughterhouse, tipped over on a straight road. The crash scene was littered with injured pigs. The driver, Danny Merrit, of Beulaville, North Carolina, was charged with reckless driving, but no charges have yet been filed against Smithfield for the cruelty inflicted on the 185 pigs. Sadly, what transpired next was entirely legal.

Most of the pigs were forcibly thrown from the truck into a nearby field; some were killed on impact. Many of the survivors were severely injured and all were visibly confused and terrified. Approximately 100 of the animals were mobile and were corralled by slaughterhouse workers in the field. Amid those 100 animals, another 10 or 15 "downers" whose injuries had grounded them writhed in the sandy soil and were stepped on by their peers. Another 10 animals outside the corral were able to spend a few minutes rooting through the dirt and grass—a brief chance to do what pigs love to do before being prodded yet again onto a truck bound for the slaughterhouse and a violent death.

Some of the injured pigs were killed by Smithfield workers using a captive-bolt gun, a tool that is supposed to propel a metal shaft into the animal's brain. But others lay in the field for hours, unable to move except to convulse violently on the ground, while Smithfield workers loaded 111 mobile survivors onto two transport trucks—a process that took more than four hours after the crash had occurred, just minutes from a kill facility with a host of transport vehicles and staff. One of the animals fell to the floor of the steel ramp leading to a transport truck and was trampled by three pigs and shocked and prodded by two Smithfield officials before regaining mobility.

In an appalling disregard for the welfare of the 49 animals loaded onto the second truck, Smithfield officials left that vehicle and its inhabitants to sit in the sun for some 45 minutes in order to shield the public's eyes from what was going on behind the truck: Workers used a front-end loader to shovel the bodies of 74 pigs (some of whom were not confirmed dead) into a pile in the back of a dump truck.

PETA field officers at the scene of the accident tried to help out, asking to be permitted to pay a large-animal veterinarian whose office was not far away to euthanize the animals, which would have spared them hours of pain and agony. A Smithfield official refused even to answer our question. The pigs continued to suffer. The Virginia state veterinarian, contacted by PETA, also refused to come to the scene to help oversee or properly euthanize the suffering pigs.

Such accidents are common in the factory-farming industry, where transport is largely unregulated and laws protecting animals on their way to the slaughterhouse are non-existent. PETA is lobbying the state of Virginia to enact strict policies mandating that animals injured in transport accidents be humanely destroyed-and asking for Smithfield's help.

The only real way to ensure that you are not supporting such cruelty is to adopt a vegetarian diet. Request a free vegetarian starter kit filled with recipes and information to help you make the transition to a cruelty-free diet today!