Bodega Bay rancher Bruce Hagemann dies in ATV accident

Longtime Bodega Bay rancher Bruce Hagemann was killed Friday in an all-terrain vehicle accident on his family’s Highway 1 cattle ranch, the CHP said.

Hagemann, 64, was a fixture in the region for decades, a well-known sheep and cattle man whose ranch and trout farm overlooks Bodega Highway. Authorities said Hagemann was working on the property in a Honda ATV with a bench-style seat and a roll cage when he lost traction on a muddy hillside, causing the vehicle to slide backward about 100 feet downhill.

The roll cage snagged on a tree and caused the ATV to spin, throwing Hagemann to the ground, the CHP said.

It appeared Hagemann was then run over by the vehicle, authorities said.

Though seriously injured in the 11:20 a.m. accident, he was conscious and coherent enough to call 911, bringing Bodega Bay firefighters out to the ranch, the CHP said.

When inclement weather prevented an air ambulance from flying out to pick him up and take him to a medical facility, he was transported by land to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, where he later died, the CHP said.

Hagemann is part of a family steeped in meat production and processing. His parents, the late Stan and Phyllis Hagemann, owned Hagemann Meat Co. on South A Street in Santa Rosa for most of its 60 years, employing all four children in its operation before their parents’ deaths and the eventual sale of the company to Golden Gate Meat Co. in 2010.

Stan Hagemann used profits from the meat company to buy the 219-acre coastal ranch between Bodega Bay and the town of Bodega that he later turned over to his eldest son.

Bruce Hagemann raised beef cattle and, later, sheep, in addition to pursuing a range of other business ventures including a trucking company, rock quarry and the popular Hagemann Ranch Trout Farm with his wife of 37 years, Pam.

Hagemann, a one-time Santa Rosa High School student, is the second local sheep rancher to die this week. Healdsburg sheep rancher Bruce Campbell, 64, died Monday night after an illness. The two men were high school contemporaries and sometime competitors in the livestock show ring.

Hagemann is at least the eighth person to die in an ATV accident in Sonoma and Mendocino counties over the past year and a half.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB. Eloísa Ruano González contributed to this report.