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Cattle accident occurred exactly a year after horse trailer crash

(KMOV/AP) -- A bull that was on the loose in St. Louis for more than a day after fleeing an overturned truck died Friday during a rescue attempt.

  Animal rescuers began searching for the bull after a double-decker truck carrying 62 bulls overturned on a downtown bridge ramp early Thursday. The bull was spotted, and on the move, Friday morning.

It perished around 10:35 a.m., between railroad tracks and the Mississippi River in south St. Louis, after several attempts to save it. With its death, the number of bulls that died from the truck wreck rose to 18.

  The animal ran along railroad tracks Friday, and a towboat was used to try and clear debris from its path. Some of the responders managed to get a rope around the bull's neck, but it fell into a ravine and "it got itself into a situation where it couldn't get out," said Jeane Jae, spokeswoman for the Missouri Humane Society.

  She said it wasn't immediately clear if the animal was injured Thursday or in the rescue attempts. It was "probably a combination of everything," she said.

It appears the animal died of shock as rescuers tried to save him.

  Animal rescue crews said the bulls were headed from Kentucky to Colorado when the load shifted Thursday and the truck overturned on a ramp off the Poplar Street Bridge in downtown St. Louis, near the grounds of the Gateway Arch. The bridge crosses the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri.

  Dozens of the bulls that were able to make the trip were transported later Thursday by truck to Farmers Livestock in Greenville, Ill., where they would stay temporarily, at the direction of the hauler's insurance company.

  The driver was treated for minor injuries and released. No other vehicle was involved in the wreck.

  The accident happened a year to the day that a double-decker horse trailer packed with 42 horses en route to an Illinois slaughterhouse crashed on Interstate 44 in Franklin County.

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  On the 'Net:

  Humane Society of Missouri: http://www.hsmo.org/

  Missouri Emergency Response Service: http://www.mersteam.org/

  (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)