A horse from Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch found itself in need of rescue Sunday afternoon after falling through the ice on a frozen pond west of Loveland.
Units from Loveland Fire Rescue Authority and Berthoud Fire Protection District were responded to the scene on Larimer County Road 31D at 1:22 p.m. There, they found a horse submerged in icy water, unable to climb out on its own.
According to Loveland Fire Rescue Authority Battalion Chief Jayson Starck, ranch staff realized something was wrong when another horse on the property showed signs of distress.
“They’re herd animals and they watch out for each other to some degree,” Starck said. “And that one was quite upset, from what I understood, prior to us getting there.”
Starck said that the horse spent approximately 45 minutes submerged before LFRA arrived. Once on the scene, the crews used rescue straps to secure the horse before manually lifting it back onto more solid ground. In total, the operation took about 15 minutes, Starck said.
“Horses obviously weigh a lot, and when they’re exhausted, like that horse was, it can’t really help,” the battalion chief explained. “So you have to come up with a way to safely get it up over that 3 foot or so large ledge that she was stuck behind.”
Crews then used heaters and blankets to warm the horse before a veterinarian treated it at the ranch.
This is the second time this year that LFRA has been called on to rescue an animal trapped in icy water. On Jan. 9, crews pulled a horse from another pond near Larimer County Road 13 in south Loveland.
Starck said that, while uncommon, LFRA typically handles a handful of large animal rescues per year.
“Whether it’s a horse caught in the fence or cows falling upside down in ditches, often, we have to go get them out,” he said.
But ice rescues add another layer of difficult, Starck continued.
“A lot of times, when they’re in a ditch or crevasse or something, we can usually get a crane to them,” he said. “Then it’s relatively easy to strap them up and lift them. But when they’re out in the middle of a pond, obviously, we don’t have a crane big enough to reach out there and grab them. So it becomes all manual labor, and you’re dealing with cold temperatures and the hazards that come with it.”
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