Hope's Saga

We had a huge scare with my Belgian mare, Hope, yesterday. My housemate's daughter ("Jane") called me at 2:30ish to tell me that Hope was down in the front pasture and she couldn't get up. We have no idea how long she had been down, but she was very cold and tired. Apparently she slipped on some ice (we had some large pools of standing water that froze over solid with the recent weather) and she couldn't get up because her back feet kept slipping out from under on on the ice. Jane put blankets on her, but she was very, very cold. I left for home, and once there I called 911 because I knew there was no way we could do this on our own. First we got one sheriff's deputy, and he called the fire department, so we got about 10 guys from the Fire Dept out there. My vet also came, along with a friend I had called. We managed to get Hope pulled off the ice and rolled over, but she couldn't stand, even though she tried and tried and tried. The problem (and the big danger) was that she had been laying on her left hind leg for so long that the blood supply was cut off and she had no feeling in that leg. The vet explained to me that the muscle tissue very quickly starts to break down. The thing is, if she couldn't get on her feet and stand, I would have had to have her put down right there, so I was pretty damn scared.

When it became clear that she could not get up on her own, the fire guys called in the highway dept and a big payloader with a hydraulic bucket. They removed the bucket and we fitted straps around her in front of her hind legs and behind her front legs, and they hoisted her up. She was fine on her front legs, but her back legs were just dangling off to the side. The vet pricked her leg with a pen knife and got no reaction at all, and things looked pretty grim at that point. But we positioned her back legs under her and slowly started to lower her until we could see if she could stand on her own. Things started looking up from there; soon she appeared to be holding herself up, and we slackened the straps. I was in front of her with a flake of hay, and she was munching away. And then she started to walk, so we got her moving toward the indoor arena. She would take a couple of steps and the payloader would catch up. It took at least 20 minutes and they had to take down part of the fence, but we got her around to the door of the arena, where we unhooked her from the straps and she walked in on her own. We gave her piles of hay and water and put blankets on her to help her get warm. I stayed with her for an hour, and then checked on her later, and she was doing ok--walking slowly and eating. I just didn't want her to go down again, and she didn't. She was pretty good this morning, too, and finally seemed to be all warmed up. I left her munching her hay. I am so relieved; I didn't want her to die like that.

I can't say enough good things about the guys from the fire department and highway department who were determined to get her up and were willing to stay for hours while we tried everything we could think of. We could not have done this without them. Hope would never have been able to get up on her own.

The aftermath for me is exhaustion. I am so tired, even after 8 solid hours of sleep. That is the reaction to the emotion and adrenaline and fear, but I expect it to wear off after a day or 2. I'm just so happy she is still with us. I felt very helpless while all of this was going on; all I could do was hold her head and stroke her face and ask her to hold on to not to leave me yet. And she did everything I asked--like she always does!