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Photographer files lawsuit over back injury suffered during Bevo and Uga's Sugar Bowl meeting

A lawsuit has been filed from the Sugar Bowl meeting gone wrong between Bevo and Uga.

Texas’ win over Georgia in the 2019 Sugar Bowl was precipitated by Bevo’s infamous escape from his pen when Uga’s handlers brought the bulldog over to meet the longhorn steer.

This did not go as planned.
This did not go as planned.

As Bevo got out, one of his horns hit the back of an Austin American-Statesman photographer. Now that photographer, who no longer works for the paper, has filed a lawsuit over his back injuries.

Nick Wagner’s suit was filed in a Travis County district court on Friday and lists Betty and John Baker — the couple that owns Bevo — and the Texas’ Silver Spurs Alumni Association as defendants in the suit. The alumni association is the group responsible for Bevo in his Texas capacities. Wagner’s attorney told the Statesman that his client has had over $20,000 in medical bills relating to the back injury and medical records provided as part of the suit say that Wagner has had a “loss of motion” in his back.

You can see Wagner in the GIF above wearing a blue vest kneeling in front of Bevo’s pen. He scrambles off to the right in the GIF as Bevo leaves his pen and appears to get clipped by the steer’s right horn.

The meeting between Bevo and Uga was easily the most viral moment of the 2018-19 bowl season. The photo op was done with the goal of a cute picture with the animals but quickly went wrong as Bevo tried to escape from the pen.

Per the Statesman, the suit claims that Bevo’s handlers were ill-prepared for the encounter and requests over $200,000 in damages and a jury trial.

Nick Wagner, a photojournalist for the Austin American-Statesman, shows off the scrapes on his back from the Texas mascot bull "Bevo," seen in background, before the Sugar Bowl NCAA college football game against Georgia in New Orleans, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. The Georgia mascot, a bulldog named "Uga X," was brought near the bull for a photo-op, when a brief kerfuffle ensued, and the photographer got scraped by Bevo's horn. (AP Photo/Rusty Costanza)
Nick Wagner's back after Bevo escaped from his pen. (AP Photo/Rusty Costanza)

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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