Red Hot Chili Pepper was pretty traumatized from the event on Monday, owner Heidi Lorenz of 700 Mill Village Road South said.
“He’s pretty shook up today. He’s going to be fine. He’s got lots of switches and some surface wounds and is just bruised and bashed. Just looking at him today he looks bewildered. … He’s obviously very sore,” Lorenz said. “It seems like everything is going to be fine.”
Goshen police Officer Russ Lamson said Monday that Police Chief Ed Anderson and Fire Chief Dan Peterson went to the emergency around 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
Goshen, Newport and Lempster firefighters also responded to the scene and a tow truck also responded, but by then the horse had been pulled out using straps.
“They ended up being able to use manpower to remove the animal safely,” he said. The horse had fallen in upside down, Lamson said, “So its feet were up in the air and it couldn’t get out on its own.”
Lorenz works out of her home studio as an artist and cares for her four horses, three off the track thoroughbreds and one miniature horse. Chili joined her a year ago and is 18 years old.
She saw her horses last on Saturday around 11 p.m. for their last feeding of the day. She slept in a little bit Sunday morning, she said, so she was startled when she awoke.
“I kind of jumped out of bed quickly,” she said, and looked out the window to find her three other horses running around the field, which is not typical behavior for them during the winter, she said. “I saw the other guys flustered and running around the field.”
Then she saw Chili, his legs up in the air.
“I saw his feet sticking out of this big concrete feeding trough that I have,” she said.
At first Lorenz thought Chili had died and fell into the trough as a result.
“I thought he had keeled over and fell into the trough,” she said.
She approached Chili and he was still, eyes closed. She laid her hand on his cheek and he opened his eyes and he started threshing around, that’s when Lorenz received her first injury, a split lip, when Chili swiped her.
Stuck tight in the concrete trough, the flailing around was tearing his skin, so Lorenz first calmed Chili down then called 911.
“I told them to bring heavy equipment and be ready to move a horse,” she said. When the firefighters arrived they asked Lorenz to sedate the horse with something, but she didn’t have anything.
“He doesn’t need sedating,” Lorenz said.
If it had happened to another horse it would have been a different story, she said. “This is the best horse that it could have happened to, cause he has a really level head on him,” Lorenz said. “He knew we were going to get him out.”
The first attempt to get Chili out failed. One of the firefighters lost his grip and the horse fell back onto Lorenz, causing her second injury, a leg injury. “I heard my knee pop and it was a sharp pain,” she said.
She was taken to the hospital afterward and X-rays showed there wasn’t a break. But there is some kind of ligament or muscle tear, she said. They put her leg in a brace and sent her home.
The second attempt to pull was successful and Chili was free.
“The first thing that he did was run out to his friends and ate some hay,” she said.
Lorenz said she is very grateful to the firefighters that responded and helped.
“I actually think they were very quick, but it seemed like a lifetime,” she said. “They were really good at listening and really paying attention to how my horse was responding. They did a really good job.”
Monday, Lorenz was resting at home. Her “fantastic neighbors” have been coming over to help move wood and to help with other chores around the house, she said. Lorenz said she still isn’t sure how Chili ended up in the trough and she hopes he wasn’t in there long.
“My guess is that they were playing and shoving each other,” she said. “I’m guessing he got fed up and reared up and slipped on the ice.”
“It’s kind of an absurd thing to come out and see this horse in this trough with his legs sticking out of it,” Lorenz said. “I’ve had horses for a long time and I’ve never experienced something like this before.”
(Union Leader - Jan 19, 2015)
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