Every season brings its share of daring horse rescues, and the beginning of 2024 has been no different. Here are two especially dramatic situations that were caught on video and camera and made the rounds on social media. Happily, all the horses mentioned here were brought to safety.
Caramelo was trapped on a narrow rooftop for over 24 hours.
First up, a chestnut horse found itself stranded on a roof in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, following disastrous flooding earlier this month (late autumn in the southern hemisphere). According to a video on NBC News, the horse stood precariously on the slanted rooftop for at least 24 hours. The video went viral on social media, where followers christened the equine “Caramelo” due to its toffee-coloured coat and flaxen mane and tail. The Brazilian military rescued the horse, placing the exhausted animal in a raft. A vet was on hand to tranquilize the animal so it could be safely moved.
Moving further north to Lebanon, Connecticut, two horses who became trapped in mud in a forest were also rescued. According to CityNews, the ordeal began when three horses were walking from their field to the barn, taking an apparent “shortcut” through a swampy area. One horse was able to make it through, but the other two began to sink, ending up on their sides.
Emergency crews were called in from the Lebanon Volunteer Fire Department (LVFD ) as well as members of DART (Durham Animal Rescue Team). Once the team was in place it realized the extent of the problem.
According to the LVFD Facebook page, the access road was “complete mud and there was a river to cross halfway in” to where the horses were stranded. So they got to work clearing a roadway and building a make shift bridge from logs, cribbing, plywood and signs. DART brought its sled and a plan to “roll” the horses out of the mud. Eventually everyone stepped in to pull the animals over the bridge and onto solid footing around 30 yards from the mud.
A vet was also on hand, and one of the horses, who had been trapped the worst of the two and had been that way for seven hours, was in “mild distress.” The entire rescue took over five hours but by the end both horses were able to stand on their own and eat hay.
“The more you try to get yourself out — and you can’t — you kind of get yourself deeper in,” Lebanon Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jay Schall told a media outlet. “And that’s basically what happened to two of them. They were just really stuck.”
The horses belong to Stirrup Fun Stables Rescue who posted about the incident on their Facebook page. “HUGE THANKS to the LVFD, D.A.R.T., the WVFD and volunteers from the Rescue (totaling 47 people) and 6 hours of wading in water and mud. The 2 horses are both out, safe and home. ‘It Takes a Village.’”
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