Ore. Firefighters Rescue Pony Stuck in Window
Source The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
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Sept. 14--Portland firefighters from Engine 27 used a bit of ingenuity and muscle to free a horse stuck in a stable window on Northwest Skyline Boulevard this morning.
Lt. Mike Pringle said the station received a call from the owners of Foxridge Farm in 6300 block of NW Skyline Boulevard, who asked if the firefighters could help with a horse stuck halfway in and halfway out of a stable window.
"I asked the crew if there were any country boys, because I'm definitely a city boy,'' Pringle said. In fact, the entire crew today was from other stations around the city, where there are few horses and even fewer calls for horse rescues.
The owners had already spent 45 minutes trying to extricate the animal without success. The horse, named Sky, Pringle said, was shaking and bleeding from his underbelly when they arrived.
"Apparently the horse saw the other horses going out to pasture and wanted to go with them,'' Pringle said. "He tried to jump out but only got halfway."
Pringle said the horse had been sedated. Foxridge owners asked if firefighters could use a saw to cut away the wall beneath the window to free the horse.
But when they turned on a circular saw to start cutting, the horse freaked out as the blade hit the metal siding. Could they lift the horse, which probably weighed at least 1,000 pounds, up and out of the window?
Owners told Pringle and his crew that because the horse had been sedated, he would not kick them; Pringle was not so sure. The recent death of a woman who was kicked in the head at Portland Meadows was fresh in his mind.
Still, all four firefighters got in the barn behind the horse (avoiding its rear legs), and lifted the horse, "with some difficulty,'' out of the window, Pringle said.
"We manhandled him out the window--felt like he weighed about 10,000 pounds," Pringle said. "The horse had some minor cuts and bleeding from screws in the window sill, but other than that he was fine.
"It's definitely first call like that I've been involved in, and probably the last."
--Stuart Tomlinson
