Potential Danger Frozen Ponds and Your livestock

By: Yvonne McGregor

Wednesday January 28 at 3:00am in the morning we had a terrifying experience. My husband Rod came into the bedroom and said "Get up Captain (Captain our horse) is in the pond". Captain had been hollering and that is how my husband had discovered there was a problem.

The pond was frozen over. It is quite a large pond with an island. So when he said Captain was in the pond I knew we had trouble, Big time.

I threw my clothes on as fast as I could and we went out to where our beloved Captain was. He was at least 30 feet from the shore and up past his belly surrounded by ice.

I guess Captain thought the pond was solid and was walking across and fell through the ice. He must have been out there for at least an hour, since he had ice cubes on him. He was shivering violently.

My husband ran and got his tractor and parked it on the shore. I tied a rope around my waist and walked out to Captain and put his halter and lead rope on. Poor boy was frozen.

We started pulling but he did not budge because the ice was blocking his path. I think he was exhausted and had been trying to get out for some time. Any way that did not work.

Then we were desperate and tied webbing to the halter and the other end to the tractor and tried to pull and we quit that real quick.

We had called the fire department, and the 911 operator knew the situation and she called me back and said the FD does not have any equipment to help. I told her that we needed man power that it was just Rod and I.

She said she would call me back. Rod and I in the mean time were trying other things. We slipped the webbing around his back end and tried to pull with the tractor and he leaped forward and broke through some ice but again stopped and then his back end went under and I was holding his head up with the lead rope. So we quit pulling since it had knocked him off his feet.

911 called back and said rescue was not coming.

Rod went out on the ice and cut a slit in the horse blanket and put the webbing through that and then pulled with the tractor, again one small movement from the horse and the horse blanket was ripping. The horse could not get through the ice.

Rod went to the barn and got a posthole digger and I told him to break the ice at the shoreline with the bucket on the tractor and he did. Then he used the posthole digger to cut a path from the shore to where captain was. That took precious time.

Once Rod broke a pathway he again went to where the horse was and secured the webbing to the blanket, Rod fell in but quickly recovered. The horse looked like he was about gone with the shivering. Rod said "it looks like we may lose him if this does not work", he then got on the tractor and started pulling; the blanket was ripping but the horse was moving, With the last inch of thread left on the blanket it was just enough to get Captain to the shore.

He is safe, he was frozen, and we took him to the barn after cutting off what was left of the horse blanket. I got towels and blankets, we through some towels in the dryer with the others we started briskly drying the horse getting the circulation going.

Captain loves coffee and drinks it from a coffee mug, so Rod warmed up some already made coffee and he got his first two cups down him. Then we made him another pot. All the while I was drying Captain and my grandson would run to the house and throw blankets and towels in the dryer and bring me warm towels to keep rubbing and drying Captain.

We are so lucky to have been able to save our horse; it would have been most horrible to watch him die that way.

We are so displeased with the Volunteer fire department; I can't begin to tell you.

Captain is doing fine; we have confined all the horses in the barn until we can fence them in the 20 acres so they won't have access to this pond during winter freeze. I got my kisses from Captain. Rod has got his kisses. Captain is doing fine; we are keeping and eye on him, he had swollen legs the last couple of days but the swelling has gone down.

We have contacted the Vet with any concerns we need to look out for and we are ready for anything that may come up.

After Thoughts:

We had tried 4 or five ways to get that horse out of there; we worked at least two hours before we finally got him out.

To come up with another plan when one fails in such an emergency is overwhelming but we never gave up. One way or the other we were going to try anything to get him out.

Please be careful with your livestock around frozen water. Have a sledge hammer handy to break a path through any ice. Have a list of close neighbors to contact in an emergency. Better yet, fence off your ponds when they are frozen.