The material prompted her to visit a livestock market belonging to United Stockyards Corporation in South St. Paul, Minnesota.
She worked at night as a cocktail waitress and visited the stockyard from October 1989 until May 1991, using a video camera she bought on credit for $75 a month.
[3] In May 1991, she released 44 hours of footage to local and national television stations that showed downed animals lying in pens for days without food or water, cows being dragged by heavy chains attached to a hind leg, pigs kept without food or water in temperatures of −22 °F (−30 °C), and one cow, still alive, frozen to the ground.
[4] The story, and a planned protest at the stockyard organized by Farm Sanctuary, received broad coverage in the media, including on NBC's Nightly News and Tom Brokaw's television program "Expose."
United Stockyards responded, just before NBC's segment regarding Sandstedt's independent investigation aired on May 19, by announcing a "no downer" policy at South St. Paul and the six other livestock markets the company owned; farmers would no longer be paid for downed animals, but instead the animals would be euthanized and the farmer charged a rendering fee.