Firefighters rescue horse after fall near State College. ‘Feeling of relief’
A horse trapped for hours in mud and a fence near State College was rescued Tuesday by more than two dozen first responders, seemingly emerging uninjured.
Dolly was walking from the pasture to the barn about 7:50 p.m. Tuesday on a sloped, tight path near West Branch Road in College Township when she became mired. No one saw the fall, but Alpha Fire Co. Assistant Chief Rob Nese said the 30-year-old horse likely slid or lost its footing because of Tuesday’s soaking rain.
The horse slid down an embankment estimated to be 8-10 feet and was perched on the ledge of a rock wall that was another five feet above the driveway. It was a large enough gap the horse could not safely step down or be rolled off, Nese said.
Volunteer firefighters used a saw to cut some of the fence away before deciding how they could free the roughly 1,500-pound horse. Nese said they considered an excavator or a crane, but opted to create a rope system to drag the horse up the embankment.
Rescuers solidified the path with hay bales and wood chips before Dolly walked into the barn on her own shortly after 10 p.m. Nese said firefighters checked on the horse Wednesday morning and were told by the owner that she has shown no sign of injury.
“It’s a great feeling. It’s a huge feeling of relief,” Nese said. “A lot of the time during rescues — whether you want to or not — all the potential end scenarios go through your head. There’s definitely points in time where you think that this may not turn out great. No matter how it happened or how long it took or what we had to learn, all that matters is that the animal is safe and everybody’s happy in the end.”
The fire company has rescued dogs from sinkholes and cows from manure pits, but Nese said Tuesday was the first time he could recall a horse rescue in his 10-year tenure.
Alpha does not have extensive training on large animal rescues, so Nese said the company is fortunate it has relationships with other departments in Centre County that have more expertise. The Millheim and Miles township fire companies assisted Tuesday.
“The local responders in our community and beyond might not have extensive knowledge of every possible situation that could happen, but the way that we train and the tools and methods we train with are adaptable,” Nese said. “If people think that they need help out of a sticky situation then we can sometimes be the jack-of-all-trades and figure out what we need to do on the fly.
“... It just goes to show what great resources we have in our community, both equipment and personnel wise. We’re lucky that we have the people and the equipment to pull off some of these more interesting calls.”
