BOLTON, Mass. — A 73-year-old volunteer at a Massachusetts animal therapy farm died over the weekend after she was repeatedly rammed by a sheep, police said.
Kim Taylor, of Wellesley, was caring for livestock in a pen alone at about 9 a.m. Saturday morning at Cultivate Care Farms in Bolton “when a sheep charged at her and repeatedly rammed her,” Bolton police Chief Warren Nelson said in a statement Sunday.
Taylor, a longtime volunteer at the farm, “suffered extensive serious injuries and went into cardiac arrest” shortly after police and emergency personnel responding to a 911 call arrived on the scene and started providing first aid, he said.
She was taken to Marlborough Hospital where she was pronounced dead, he said.
“We are heartbroken and devastated by the passing of our treasured volunteer,” the farm said in a statement Monday. Taylor had been volunteering at the site for 14 months.
Her family asked for privacy.
“Cultivate continually gave our mother so much joy through her volunteering, and we take solace in that,” the family said in a statement sent by the farm.
Animal control and farm personnel are determining what to do with the sheep.
The nonprofit Cultivate Care Farms on its website says it provides animal-based mental health therapy for children and adolescents.