Driver hits cow in dark on Grand Parkway (KTRK)
By Tracy Clemons
Updated 2 hrs 59 mins ago
The pictures of Jacob Jensen's car are jaw-dropping.
"If there would've been a passenger with me, that passenger would've been killed," the 24-year old said.
He was on the Grand Parkway near Louetta last week when someone flashed their lights at him. It was too late.
"I came over the hill and they were just at that angle perfectly and they just appeared," he said.
Four cows were in the road. Jensen swerved, but hit one. He walked away from this mangled car with only a cut on his finger. The deputy that responded told him about Taurean Branford, the off-duty HPD officer who was killed when his motorcycle crashed into a cow on the Grand Parkway near FM 529 in October.
"He didn't tell me it was an officer, but he did tell me the last accident that involved a cow on the highway, the person wasn't so lucky and had passed away," Jensen said.
"He didn't have the time to stop or react until he was right up on it," said Branford's father Daniel Branford.
Witnesses said then that it was so dark on that stretch of the Grand Parkway that night that it was impossible to see the cows. Jensen says it was dark just down the road where he crashed.
"I'm at a loss for words because it still hasn't been fixed. It still hasn't been corrected," Daniel Branford told us when we explained the latest accident to him.
Just as important as added lighting, the Branford's believe the seemingly endless number of cows should be under closer watch.
"Somebody has to be responsible for those cows," he said.
"It would be a good thing for them to patrol their fences and make sure it is a tollway. They should have that under control," Jensen added.
The Branford's tell Eyewitness News the owner of the cow that killed their son never came forward.