A milk truck driver has been fired from his job after urinating inside a dairy barn during a routine pickup.
The incident happened the first week of March at Tremblay Farm in Highgate, Vermont.
According to WCAX News, the unnamed truck driver was at the Tremblay Farm picking up product when he followed the call of nature to the inside of the main barn and peed right in front of several dairy cows and a moving surveillance camera.
“We could see into the window of the milk house and he kept disappearing,” said Darleen Tremblay, one of the owners of Tremblay Farm.
“When the videos came up of what he had been doing– I couldn’t move. I froze and I shook… Our poor baby [cow] Ruby” Tremblay said.
The driver, who works for Vaillancourt Trucking, is not employed by Tremblay Farm, or the co-op that distributes their milk, and was also caught improperly testing milk while inside the main barn.
“”He doesn’t belong in the main barn even if he has to go to the restroom,” Tremblay said.
“[I’m] shattered… He took something,” she continued.
“You know, we’ve raised our kids down there that’s where you spend 90 percent of your time and your kids are along with you when they’ve walked in that barn and they’ve been in that milk house and how do you have someone that you’re paying to take your product be so disrespectful to it?” she added.
Dairy Farmers of America, the co-op that distributes the milk from Tremblay Farms, says that the truck driver’s behavior was unacceptable, and that they are sifting through all possible legal options.
“We saw the videos. What we saw was deplorable,” said Monica Massey, spokesperson for Dairy farmers of America.
“Listen, if you are going to deal with our members and our milk supplies, we have expectations that you do so in a professional manner and this is far from that. If you’re going to come on our dairies and violate that, we are going to push back hard…. I am not sure if we even cared if any laws were broken because what we saw was not acceptable.”
“Our investigators are looking into all possible avenues for this. Whether there some regulatory issues of sanitation, possibly animal abuse, etc… My understanding is also the authorities, police or sheriff’s department– have been contacted as well,” said. Vt. Agriculture Secretary Anson Tebbetts.
The truck driver, whose name has not been released, is currently not facing any legal charges, but has been fired from Vaillancourt Trucking.
