Two years ago, at 3:30 am, my husband and I were in open range grazing land on an unpaved road in Arizona. We were setting up for night darksky photography. We knew the area well, and in the daytime had never seen too many cows together at the same time, and I (erroneously) thought we were safe from a stampede. There was no moon, and it was really dark. Well, my husband set up his camera and tripod on the road, and then we heard the rustlings on both sides of us, and then snorting. I couldn't fucking believe it! The stampede started, I could feel the ground shake, and I shouted for my husband to drop and roll under the car. Our mere presence was enough to spook the cattle. It was really loud. Weirdly enough, in all this, we couldn't see anything because it was so dark and the area had a lot of bushes.
He is disabled and it just flashed through my mind that he was going to be stomped to death because of my overconfidence. The cows all stayed to left of the car and us, and we survived. The photography was scratched for the night, however, from all the dust kicked up. I drove us home and felt lucky. And then had a cognac. And then some more.