911 caller: 'There's pigs all over I-40'

Pigs running loose on a major highway at the height of the morning rush hour.

Emergency dispatchers were as surprised as motorists calling 911 about the swine on Interstate 40 West Wednesday.

"There's a truck on Highway 40 that's dropping pigs," a woman told a 911 dispatcher.

"They're dropping what?" the dispatcher asked.

"There's a huge truck that's carrying pigs on the highway, and some of them fell on the highway," the woman said.

"So there's pigs falling on the highway?" the dispatcher questioned.

"Yes, off a truck," the woman replies.

Durham police believe that five pigs fell out of the back of a truck, whose driver kept on going without knowing it. Callers to 911 reported seeing the pigs falling from the truck for the stretch of about a mile on I-40, between Miami Boulevard and Interstate 540.

"There's pigs all over I-40," a second woman who called 911 said. "There are pigs everywhere."

"I saw them running on the highway," the first caller said.

The second 911 caller hung up, saying that she was going to stop and try to get the pigs out of the road.

Police spent an hour chasing and rounding up the pigs, the biggest of which weighed 60 pounds. Officers wrangled the swine into squad cars, then transferred them into an animal control trailer to go to the Durham Animal Control Shelter.

The shelter director said that the pigs weren't hurt badly and were recovering.

The pigs will be kept at the shelter for 45 to 60 days, and if no one claims them, they'll be auctioned off.