In a desperate race against time, a 20-year-old Alberta man rallied the rescue of a horse that had fallen through the ice in Alberta on Monday.
Cody Scott discovered the 1,500-pound female Clydesdale stranded in the frigid waters of Lloyd Creek in Rimbey, Alta., about 62 kilometres northwest of Red Deer. On Tuesday, he told CTV Calgary that he recognized the horse as one belonging to his neighbour.
As the panicked horse struggled in the water, Scott gathered some friends for a rescue mission.
First, they tried to use a rope to pull the animal out. When that proved unsuccessful, the group brought in a snowmobile, but its belt snapped from the weight of the sodden, struggling animal. So Scott and his friends reverted to manually trying to free the horse from the ice.
“She kept on sinking deeper and deeper into it,” Scott recalled. “It was a fight with time.”
After three hours, their efforts paid off. The horse managed to lift one leg out of the water and the group pulled up the other one. The chilled mare then pulled itself the rest of the way onto the surrounding ice. The RCMP and local firefighters had been called and they had arrived towards the end of the rescue.
Scott recorded the entire ordeal on a GoPro camera he had attached to his chest. He said he has grown up around horses his entire life and that he was impressed by this particular horse’s perseverance.
“It was fairly, ridiculously cold, and to be honest, I don’t know how the horse made it,” Scott said.
It took a few minutes, but the horse was eventually able to stand up on its own and walk away. The animal has been reunited with its owners and checked out by a veterinarian. Scott said he expects the horse will make a full recovery.
With files from CTV Calgary
