Horses and swimming pools don’t always make the best bedfellows.
So, when Cindy Buckel from Pasco County, Florida, discovered her horse Moe way out of his depth in their pool, she and her husband enlisted the help of their local fire rescue.
They had been busy with yard work on Tuesday, June 20, when they moved their horses, Moe and Huey, to another part of the yard.
The couple turned their back for a few moments and when they looked back, they saw that Huey had Moe cornered beside the pool.
Buckel recalled looking away again, only to look back and see Moe up to his neck in the water, standing.
She saw Moe “trying to swim” and tried to reassure him by saying, “You’re okay, you don’t need to swim.”
Then, Buckel got in the pool herself to soothe Moe, whom she describes as usually being calm and sweet. She immediately called the vet while her husband reached out to Pasco County Fire Rescue.
Buckel stayed in the swimming pool with Moe to keep him calm and reassured.
“Our engine captain called for our special operations team that has specialized equipment to be able to get the horse out of the pool,” Corey Dierdorff, of the Pasco County Fire Rescue, told The Epoch Times.
They brought a harness and straps with them to the couple’s home on Frontier Drive, near Zephyrhills, while a neighbor made his way over with a tractor.
“We went over and I and one of our local vets was there and sedated the horse,” Dierdorff said. “We were able to pull the horse out of the water.”
The Fire Rescue’s special operations team is used to pulling livestock from ponds and swamps, Dierdorff said, adding, “This is something that they practice and train for.”
Using the tractor’s hydraulic arms, the rescuers took care to lift the horse up and over, so as to not damage the pool. Moreover, Moe himself suffered no injuries in the incident.
“The horse is okay,” Dierdorff said.
Buckel also commended the rescuers for going slow, lifting Moe, and letting him down gently so he didn’t get hurt.
“He’s amazing,” she told Fox. “And now I know I can add that to my list of equine stuff, water rescue.”
