Tumble into canal a mare of a nightmare (happy ending)
This comes from my local paper, WWW.MODBEE.COM
Tumble into canal a mare of a nightmare
By JEFF JARDINE
BEE LOCAL COLUMNIST
Last Updated: January 4, 2004, 03:51:00 AM PST
Evelyn Young calls it her "'Animal Planet' moment."
Anyone having a distressed and injured animal can relate to her mare nightmare. It involved nine hours of panic, frustration and anguish.
"I've never felt more helpless," she said.
With her arena flooded, the west Modesto equestrienne decided to exercise her horses along the Modesto Irrigation District's Lateral No. 5, near Paradise Road, on New Year's Eve afternoon.
She generally takes a different route to ride her 19-year-old black-and- white paint named Oreo and lead her 4-year-old showhorse, Rosie. But the gate was open, giving her access to the canal between Grimes and Ohio avenues.
As they strolled along the bank, Young said, a large black bull in a field next to the canal suddenly began bellowing.
Rosie spooked, her hind feet slipping over the edge of the canal bank. Young could not hold on.
"I had to let go of her lead," Young said.
Rosie tumbled into the canal and its inches-deep stream of muddy water.
A wreck, horse folks term it.
Then the mare panicked and tried to scramble up the slick, steep concrete bank. Rosie tore the hide off her front legs, sliding against the concrete.
"I thought, 'Oh, my God! What am I going to do?'" Young said.
She couldn't go into the canal to calm Rosie for fear Oreo might follow her and double her trouble.
Meanwhile, Young said, the bull kept up the racket. "He was full-out screaming at us," she said.
Young, who had forgotten her cell phone, began screaming, too -- for help. About five minutes passed before a man and woman heard her.
The man went to call 911. An operator dispatched a Stanislaus County Animal Services officer.
The woman held Oreo's reins while Young rushed home to get a horse blanket, along with wraps for Rosie's bleeding legs.
Veterinarian Fay Burton from the Taylor Road Veterinary Clinic just outside Turlock arrived and sedated Rosie while they tried to pull the horse out of the canal. Nothing worked.
Young said an MID official came and took photographs, but refused to help, citing liability issues.
MID spokeswoman Kate Hora said the animal control officers and veterinarians already were on the scene by the time an agency official got there.
"We don't really have any equipment that would be appropriate for that," she said. Nor, she said, does the MID have a policy for such incidents. "We take each one on a case-by-case basis."
In mid-afternoon, with the horse still in the canal, a friend of Young's called authorities again. This time, the Burbank Paradise Fire Department was dispatched.
Wrong department. That section of the canal is in the Woodland Avenue Fire Department's jurisdiction.
A Woodland Avenue crew arrived around 4 p.m., and Chief Mike Passalaqua knew he would need help. So he called Howard Sweet, owner of Modesto's Quality Crane.
Burton and Young guided the staggering horse to the bridge at Grimes Avenue, where Sweet hoisted the horse -- using the boom and a strap harness -- out of the canal.
It wasn't the first time a horse had gone into the canal, Animal Services director Mike Rodriquez said.
"And I can guarantee you it will happen again," he said. "We've had horses, cattle, dogs, cats -- even emus get stuck down there."
Rosie is resting -- perhaps not so comfortably -- at the veterinary hospital.
"We were there from 6 o'clock (p.m.) to 9, cleaning and dressing her wounds," Young said. "(Rosie) was just shivering from the cold. She was caked with mud."
The scarring could be more emotional than cosmetic. Animals that endure traumatic wrecks can be skittish for years to come.
"I'm hoping I can show her again," Young said.
Right now, though, Young is frustrated that it took so long to get help and that the fire department wasn't called first.
She is angry with herself for forgetting her cell phone that day, delaying the rescue. And she is second-guessing herself for not heading home the moment the bull began to stir and Rosie got nervous.
She's feeling all the emotions -- including relief -- that go into loving an animal.
"This is one eye-opening experience," she said.
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A horse blanket along the canel bank helps protect Rosie’s hide while a crew from the Woodland Avenue Fire Department figures out how to get the horse out of MID’s Lateral No. 5 on New Year’s Eve.
PAUL SESSER
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