Chief Lord and the boys save a horse

My little brother, Jay is the Fire Chief of a little town in New Hampshire.  I was hanging out on the 2^nd of August talking on the phone when I got an email from my friend Michael who lives a little way from my brother with a link to the following article.  So there I was, talking on the phone with Jill to Daniel in West Lafayette, IN, and I start reading and I get to the part about “What type of horse it was,” and just started cracking up.

Once I stopped laughing and could read it without laughing, I read it to Jill and Daniel and they started cracking up at the same place I did because it was so typically my brother and they could relate.  He’s a man of few words, so I could just hear him saying it.  Enjoy.

Firefighters get creative to save horse that fell through floor

By Susan Morse
smorse@seacoastonline.com
August 02, 2008 6:00 AM

HAMPTON FALLS — Firefighters rescued a horse that fell partially through barn floorboards and was dangling eight feet above the ground Friday afternoon.

The horse had been put in a stall before the boards gave way, said Fire Chief Jay Lord.

“The horse has got a leg and a half between two holes in the floor; it’s eight feet underneath,” he said.

“It basically was straddling this support beam, its legs dangling.”

The horse is OK, said Lord, who had no further information on the type of horse, only describing it as “black.”

Firefighters responded to 149 Drinkwater Road, the home of Ed and Tracy Healey Beattie, around 2 p.m., said Lord.

Firefighters went underneath the barn and built a wood frame, Jenga-like, 6 feet tall, said Lord.  This was to give the horse something to stand on, to give it “enough oomph” to get out of there.

It worked, said Lord, but the horse bounced around and broke through the floorboards again.

“Because it fell in the corner, we had to take part of the stall wall apart,” said Lord.  “Somewhere along the line, the vet showed up and gave it a sedative so it wouldn’t hurt itself.”

Firefighters then pulled the wall apart and dragged the horse out of the hole.

“We pushed it up enough to get a plank under its butt,” Lord said.

Exeter firefighters were called in and asked to bring their airbags.  The thought was the airbags could go in the middle of the wooden tower, to push it up.

“We ended up not using the system,” said Lord.  “At that point, we were looking for options.”

The rescue took two and a half hours, said Lord, with 13 local firefighters, three from Exeter and numerous bystanders on scene.  Police did traffic control on Drinkwater Road, said Lord.

Lord admitted firefighters don’t generally have much experience with this type of rescue.

“We’re not really trained for pulling horses out of floors,” he said.