BIG news from Mount Gambier

[Guest Damien]

Gotta love living in the country! This made page three of our local news today. I just love the first line My mate knows the pig's owner, apparently he's named Winston after Churchill.

 

[h=1]Piggy in middle of bizarre city incident[/h]

EMMA D'AGOSTINO

25 Apr, 2012 04:00 AM

A PREGNANT woman went into labour at the weekend after a rampaging pig gored her husband's leg at a Mount Gambier primary school.

The male pig, which escaped from a nearby house where it was raised, "went wild" as storms swept through the South East on Saturday.

It streaked across Wehl Street and onto a field at Reidy Park Primary School, where paramedic Joe Renko was "having a kick of the footie" with his nephew Brodie Jennings.

His heavily pregnant wife Melissa was watching on with her pregnant sister Justine Jennings and mother Marita Chuck.

Ms Chuck said she remembered telling her grandson the pig would not hurt him because it was domesticated.

"It's a friendly pig," she told Brodie moments before its tusks tore into Mr Renko's leg.

"Blood was spurting out everywhere," Ms Chuck said.

"It just ripped his skin up like it was a piece of tin - he knew he had cut an artery."

Astounded by the bizarre sight, Ms Chuck said tourists visiting Mount Gambier for the national BMX championships stopped to help.

She said the good samaritans sheltered her grandson and his mother away from the spooked animal, which was ripping up the grass with its tusks.

"They came back on Sunday to check if we were all okay," Ms Chuck said.

Melissa Renko, who was two days overdue at the time, went into labour as she compressed her husband's wound and paramedics found both Mr and Mrs Renko in need of medical assistance when they arrived at the scene.

The stunned family welcomed the couple's first child, baby Indiana Renko, into the world at 4am the following morning.

"They should have called her Babe," Mrs Chuck joked.

She said the scare had worked out better for her daughter than a dose of castor oil.

"It could have been worse," Mrs Renko agreed.

Mr Renko was given a tetanus shot, a course of antibiotics and stitches before being released from hospital.

"No-one believed us when we told them what happened," he said.

"The pig's owner was very apologetic - he came to visit us at the hospital and bought us flowers."

Mrs Chuck said the pig had since been sent to a farm.

Mount Gambier City Council operational services director Daryl Sexton said he had "never heard of anything like this" happening in the Blue Lake city in his 17 years with the local authority.

"It was a pretty unusual set of circumstances all around," he told The Border Watch.

Mr Sexton said council "actively discourages" city residents from keeping large farm animals as pets. "Anyone who wants to keep these sorts of animals as pets needs to seek development approval," he said.

 

[Toni]

thanks......sounds a lot more interesting than some of our news stories that's for sure.

[Guest Guest75]

Boy you do live on the edge down there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest Damien]

Oh yes Tyke, sometimes I send my six year old out shopping and worry she may fall into the hands of a major sheep rustler and never be seen again. It's mental here! There's street gangs every 500km or so, nightmare.

[Guest Shmaggle]

I love this story! Especially the big about it's tusks, I have an image of a huge monster pig now. What a great way to induce labour...