The party is over for Party Bus, the 3-year-old bull that jumped over the fence at a rodeo area in central Oregon on Saturday, escaping into the concessions area and injuring at least three people.
Mike Corey, his owner, said Party Bus didn’t intend to injure anyone. And Corey said he feels “bad about it,” for all those injured and added it was fortunate nobody was seriously hurt.
Due to the media frenzy around the bull’s escape, however, Corey said the bull is back home in Moses Lake, Washington — “condemned” to never rodeo again. He’s OK with that, but would have wanted to have given Party Bus a second chance, he said.
Party Bus directly injured three people after he jumped a fence at the Sisters Rodeo, running through the stands and into a concessions area.
One woman broke her nose, and another broke an arm, said Thad Olson, chief of the Cloverdale Rural Fire Protection District, which operates just outside of Sisters. Party Bus flipped another woman through the air, and Olson said she miraculously suffered no known injuries.
Brand 44 N, a breakfast and brunch restaurant in Terrebonne, posted an image of the woman having breakfast the next day on Facebook.
The bull’s escape lasted less than a minute, Olson said.
But he said spectators were lucky more people weren’t in the concessions area. The annual five-day Sisters Rodeo, which Olson said brings people from across the country, is a popular event.
Two others were injured during the escape, but not directly by Party Bus. One was a Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office deputy, who a sheriff’s office representative said injured his knee trying to corral Party Bus.
“He’s very athletic, as we know now,” Corey said.
Corey, who also owns Corey and Lange Rodeo, a livestock contractor hired by Sisters Rodeo, said Party Bus will remain at home. Party Bus will breed with cows, continuing a line of successful rodeo bulls.
“He’ll have children that will buck in national rodeo,” he said.
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