Cow that escaped Queens slaughterhouse gets 11th-hour reprieve

A cow made headlines Thursday afternoon when it escaped from a Queens, New York, slaughterhouse and went on a wild run through town. In the end, the cow was cornered in a parking garage and returned to the slaughterhouse — and it seemed as if its mad dash for freedom had all been for naught.

"Tomorrow we kill it," Archer Halal employee Adad Deopersaud told DNAinfo Thursday afternoon. "Every Friday we kill animals."

Not so fast: The cow's story happened to reach Mike Stura of Skylands Animal Sanctuary, located in Wantage, New Jersey. Gothamist reports that Stura drove to Queens to rescue the cow, but arrived after the slaughterhouse had already closed.

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That was no deterrent: Stura spent the night in his trailer and Friday morning he posted on Facebook to say that he had the cow in his care, and they were on their way to the vet. Only, he's no longer known just as "the cow" — the escape artist now has a name to go with his second chance at life. Meet Freddie. Jeva Lange

(Facebook/Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue)