'Mess with the bull, you get the horn'

Trying to save elk results in 24 stitches, 'once-in-a-lifetime' story

By Jomay Steen, Journal staff | Saturday, October 18, 2008

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It's been nearly a month since a Custer woman rushed her husband to the emergency room after he had tangled with a bull elk. On Sept. 20, while trying to untangle the surviving animal of two bull elk whose antlers were locked together, Duke Venjohn received more than a swift butt to the head.

This week, Venjohn's wife, Peg, said her husband was recuperating nicely, "but he's bored to death."

"There's the old adage, 'You mess with the bull, you get the horn.' It literally means something to him now," she said.

The saga started out, simply enough, as a trip to the ranch of their daughter and son-in-law, Trixie and Brad Grill, to see two elk whose antlers had become entangled while fighting.

"It was kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing," Duke Venjohn said.

Out in the pasture, the couples took photographs and observed that one of the animals had died, and the other was weak from lack of water and food. The men discussed several ideas about how to free the surviving elk.

They decided that Venjohn should hold the antlers of the weakened animal, while his son-in-law used a saw to cut through the antlers of the dead animal.

"I got my hand on the horns and was wiggling them around just to see what he would do. He was just standing there," Venjohn said of the elk.

Venjohn said if it lunged for him, he thought he could feel it come at him. It did. Venjohn didn't.

"He was stronger than I was," the Custer man admitted after being knocked down.

Asked if he were hurt, Venjohn thought only his upper lip, chin and perhaps his pride had been bruised. What he didn't feel or even see, was that he had been gored in the neck.

"One of his tines poked into my neck above the collar bone and then straight down behind my chest bone," he said.

"My son-in-law said, 'You've got a hole in your neck, and it's bleeding pretty good.' I put my handkerchief up on my neck and the wife, who's a nurse, said we better go to the hospital in Custer for stitches and a tetanus shot," he said.

He didn't think he needed the attention, but she wasn't arguing.

"We're going," she said.

"I didn't think it was anything real serious yet," he said.

At the emergency room, the doctor shook her head and sent him by ambulance to Rapid City Regional Hospital. He arrived at the emergency room and was told he may need emergency surgery.

"They did a CAT scan, where they could see an artery bleeding behind the chest bone. The doctor on call wouldn't touch me. A heart surgeon was called in to perform the surgery," he said.

At 11:45 p.m., he went into surgery.

"Two hours later, they found the elk hadn't punctured an artery but a blood vessel that was coming from a major artery about a quarter-inch from the artery," he said. "They had to cut my chest open like in open heart surgery."

With 42 stitches, an impressive scar and an unforgettable experience of a lifetime, he also will get to start driving soon. But he still isn't able to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds or go back to his job as maintenance worker at Custer School District until Dec. 20.

"It's just a matter of taking life easy," Venjohn said. "But I feel pretty good."

And his elk assailant?

"He's in the freezer. Well, no, he's not. I'm kidding."

While Venjohn was receiving medical care, his son-in-law alerted state Game, Fish & Parks officers of the trapped elk. The two responding game officials kept a safe distance, using a high-powered rifle to shoot off part of the antler of the dead elk to free the survivor, who was weakened and laying next to its former fellow combatant.

He didn't take the hint, and the wardens had to tie a log chain around the hind legs of the dead elk to pull it away with a pickup.

"After 10, 15 seconds, he jumped up and took off over the hill," Venjohn said. "He's out there somewhere."

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com