Horse rescued by volunteer fire department
Published 4:40 pm Wednesday, July 17, 2013
IVOR—When Cindy Carter went to sleep Tuesday night, Bianca, her 16-year-old horse, was running around whinnying with another other horse.
Bianca the 16-year-old horse stuck in a deep muddy hole. Rescuers got the horse out after two hours of work. — SUBMITTED/ERIC CARTER
But when Carter woke up, she found Bianca stuck in a mud hole that was recently dug to bury another horse.
“Some time during the storm, she must have gotten spooked and ran into it,” said Carter, who had the area fenced off.
At first, Carter called her neighbor, Selena Wynne, over and they tried to see if they could get Bianca out.
“This was an effort,” Wynne said. “Me and Cindy were sinking in the hole trying to get her out of it.”
Next, they called a veterinarian, and finally, they called the Ivor Volunteer Fire Department. Firefighters responded to the scene within 15 minutes, and after 2 hours, the horse was out of the hole.
“We love our fire department,” Carter said. “I don’t know how to thank them enough. The firefighters are the best.”
Carl Garner, Ivor Volunteer Fire Department chief, said this is the first time in 30 years that he had ever gotten a call like this.
“When I got there, we knew we’d get the horse out, we just didn’t know how we’d do it,” Garner said. “It was a learning experience for sure.”
With help from the Southampton County Sheriff’s Department, Wakefield Fire Department, animal control, a local veterinarian and a farmer’s tractor, the horse was freed from the mud hole. The department got advice from the veterinarian for the best way to harness the horse, and from there, used the tractor to get the 1,100-pound horse out of the muddy hole.
“I’ve never experienced something like this,” said Ivor VFD Captain Keith Joyner. “We were not sure what to do, but we bounced around ideas and figured something out.”
Joyner said that the biggest problem was the heat. The fire department put up a tent around the horse to help keep the sunlight off of them while they were digging around the stuck horse.
Bianca is going to be OK, said Carter.
“We expect a full recovery,” Carter said. “We just have to keep her on the IV for hydration purposes and check her for colic.
“We are surprised she is doing as well as she is — it is just amazing that she did as well as she did.”
