A horse by Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch needed on Sunday afternoon after falling through the ice on a frozen pond west of Loveland.
Units of the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority and the Berthoud Fire Protection District were responded to the scene of the Larimer County Road 31d at 1:22 p.m.
According to Jayson Starck, Loveland Fire Rescue Authority's battalion boss, the Ranch employees realized that something was wrong than another horse on the property showed signs of need.
“They are herd animals and they pay attention to a certain extent,” said Starck. “And this was pretty annoyed what I understood before we got there.”
Starck said that the horse was over for about 45 minutes before the LFRA arrived. As soon as the crews were on site, they used rescue straps to secure the horse before they ruin it manually on a firm ground. Overall, the operation took about 15 minutes, said Starck.
“Horses obviously weigh a lot and if they are exhausted like this horse, it can't really help,” said the battalion boss. “So you have to find a way to get it over this 3 foot or so big rocky lead that it was behind.”
The crews then used heaters and blankets to heat the horse before a veterinarian treated it on the ranch.
This is the second time this year that LFRA was asked to save an animal enclosed in icy water. On January 9, the crews pulled a horse from another pond near the Larim County Road 13 in South Loveland.
Starck said that LFRA treats unusually a handful of large animal rescues a year.
“No matter whether it is a horse that is trapped in the fence or in the cows that turn them upside down in ditches, we often have to get them out,” he said.
But ice retting add another layer more difficult, Starck continued.
“Often, if you are in a ditch or a column or something, we can usually get a crane,” he said. “Then it is relatively easy to buckle up and to raise them. But if you are outside in the middle of a pond, of course we don't have a crane that is big enough to reach out there and grab it. So everything will be manual work, and you are dealing with cold temperatures and the associated dangers. “
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