Horse pulled from bog in ‘very difficult and dangerous rescue.’ See how it unfolded
.jpeg "The 16-year-old mare was trapped in the mud and was showing signs of mild hypothermia, according to Large Animal Response Group.")
Jenny Fudge doesn’t make a habit of wading into cold, sticky bogs in her spare time. But if it involves saving a horse, then it’s right in her job description.
Fudge, who is head of the horse rescue nonprofit Large Animal Response Group, was trying to make her way over to heave a 16-year-old mare out of a Georgia creek Monday night, Oct. 9. The horse, submerged in water and thick mud, was beginning to show signs of mild hypothermia.
A few steps into the bog and — shlurp! Her shoes got sucked right off.
“Oh my gosh, this is really bad,” she said to herself.
After finding the mare stuck in a muddy creek on their property near Stout Park in Cobb County, the horse’s owners called in help from the Cobb County Fire Department.
With the assistance of the Large Animal Response Group, the horse eventually was tugged out of its sticky situation despite a “very difficult and dangerous rescue,” Fudge told McClatchy News.
Fudge got a call from the fire department about the mare’s situation, so the team hooked up their trailer of equipment and made the 35-minute trip over, she said.
When the team of three arrived, everyone was mostly calm on site, she said. In addition to around 10 rescuers, there was a small gathering of neighbors there watching the situation.
The mare, however, was not liking its situation and the attention.
It was generally a “lively” horse, Fudge said, and it wasn’t used to being handled by people. It struggled a lot during the rescue, making it “very difficult and dangerous,” she said.
“She was subtle about her power,” Fudge explained.
It was eventually sedated.
In the process of getting stuck in the creek, the mare was about 20 feet from stable land, which made the rescue more challenging, Fudge said. There was also a 3-foot embankment to pull the horse over.
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That’s when the group’s equipment came in handy, Fudge said. A green glide, made of “heavy-duty plastic,” was slid under the horse to make it easier to drag across the ground without injuring it more, according to Fudge. Webbing, or straps, were also used to help hoist the horse up.
The yellow encasing around the horse’s face protected it from hitting its head against the ground. For the mare, it was an essential component considering how much it flailed around, Fudge said.
The “mentally stimulating” rescue took more than three hours from when the owners found the missing horse to it being pulled from the creek, Fudge said.
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“Every time we’re on scene, it’s like, alright, teamwork,” Fudge said of working with firefighters. “We go to work and I love that chemistry.”
The mare has been recovering well, according to Fudge’s last check-in with the owners. Fudge suspects the horse’s slip into the creek was just a rare mishap.
The team from Large Animal Rescue received training from Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue, which organizes hands-on training to on how to properly rescue stuck animals. Fudge has a horse farm herself, which helps the team practice their skills on her horses, she said.
Fudge said a good way to ensure a horse’s safety is to feed it twice a day rather than once. If an owner uses a two-times-a-day feeding schedule, they have the opportunity to check in on their horse every 12 hours rather than 24 hours, which could be life-saving to the animal.
Stout Park is about 20 miles west of Atlanta.
This story was originally published October 12, 2023 at 4:37 PM with the headline "Horse pulled from bog in ‘very difficult and dangerous rescue.’ See how it unfolded."
