Authorities in Oregon are investigating how a hog farmer was eaten by his animals.
The remains of Terry Vance Garner, 70, were found in his hog enclosure Wednesday, according to local news reports Monday.
The farmer had gone to feed the hogs, some weighing as much as 700 pounds, about 7:30 a.m., according to a report from CNN affiliate KMTR. After Garner was not seen for several hours, a family member went to check on him and found his dentures in the hog pen. Other remains were found, but the hogs had eaten most of the farmer, according to the report.
The sheriff's department is looking into the death.
"Due to the unusual circumstances, the Sheriff's Office is investigating to determine if foul play may have resulted in the death of Mr. Garner," Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier told CNN affiliate KVAL.
“For all we know, it was a horrific accident, but it’s so doggone weird that we have to look at all possibilities,” the Eugene Register-Guard quoted Frasier as saying.
Garner could have suffered a heart attack and fallen in the pen, or the hogs could have knocked him off his feet and then eaten him, Frasier told the newspaper.
The state of the remains made determining a cause of death difficult, according to the news reports. They had been sent to the University of Oregon and examined by a forensic anthropologist, the report said.
The farmer's brother, Michael Garner, told the Register-Guard that one of the sows had bitten the farmer last year after he accidentally stepped on a piglet.
“He said he was going to kill it, but when I asked him about it later, he said he had changed his mind,” Garner said.
Garner told the Register-Guard his brother was a Vietnam veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The farm was "a life-saver," he said.
“Those animals were his life,” Garner told the Register-Guard.
"Those animals were his life"
Apparently, his death too.
"Brick Top" would be proud.
Never trust a man with a pig farm. 😉
Send those hogs to Afghanistan and Iran.
People forget that pigs are omnivores. I've heard of pigs eating dead bodies before.
When I was a small boy living on a farm. I slipped and fell at the edge of the hog pen. My father panicked but calmed down when he saw that I didn't fall into the pen. Those fat beast got so excited and ran to the edge of the pen where I was hoping for a nibble. If you think a goat will eat anything you obviously know nothing about hogs. They can be very fast and brutal. I once saw one of them catch a small kitten and started chewing it while it was hissing and screaming. It was gone in no time. If the farmer fell into the pen they were all over him in seconds. Since nobody heard the farmer screaming he must have been unconscious when he went in. Hogs are very dangerous animals. Ask anyone that has ever gone hunting for wild boar.
Bacon taste good!
The posters on here bleating about pigs being dangerous are hilariously stupid. It's as if they don't realise they belong to the most vicious and dangerous species the planet has ever known, mankind.
Yeah, mankind is the most evil species ever, ya know the only one to ever consider ethics in making a decision. Yeah, no – you are totally right.
I heard that one of the pigs said to another pig:
"Don't make a human of yourself."
Best comment!
Don't wanna sound callous by asking why was he raising 700lb pigs (twice the average) in the first place. Instead I will say, I used to think being burned alive was the worst possible death. I was wrong. Eaten alive by your own 700lb pigs definitely top that one. RIP guy.
You know, I'd have agree with you on being eaten by a pig, eaten by anything while still alive would be hard to swallow.
Are you sure his name wasn't Mason Verger?
Those hogs were very hungry and stupid.
Move over, bacon...
Well, he went in the pen to feed the hogs, and that's exactly what he did...
In Soviet Russia, pig eat you!
The Farm was the farmer's life now he's the farms life. He must have really loved those pigs. And it must have been mutual.