Corporate Campaigns // Smithfield Foods: Cruel to Pigs and Humans // Smithfield's Trucking Accidents: Pigs Pay the Price

October 2005: 74 Pigs Suffer for Hours on the Side of the Road

On October 18, 2005, a Smithfield Foods pig-transport truck overturned on Virginia Route 10, leaving numerous terribly injured pigs screaming in a field as incompetent Smithfield employees struggled to kill them with faulty captive-bolt guns.

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 been filed against Smithfield for the cruelty inflicted on the 185 pigs.

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 pigs 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 they were again prodded onto a truck bound for the slaughterhouse.

Smithfield workers killed some of the injured pigs with a captive-bolt gun, a tool that propels a metal shaft into animals' brains. Captive-bolt guns are not approved for killing animals after accidents because they simply do not work well, causing extraordinary suffering for animals who are shot incorrectly. Other pigs 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 away from a slaughter facility with a host of transport vehicles and staff members. 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 example of disregard for the welfare of the 49 animals who were 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 (including some who 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 address our request. 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 not uncommon in the factory-farming industry, where transport is largely unregulated and laws protecting animals on their way to the slaughterhouse are virtually useless. PETA is lobbying the state of Virginia to enact strict policies mandating that animals injured in transport accidents be euthanized and is asking for Smithfield's help.

The only real way to ensure that you are not supporting 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!