I was rummaging through files on an old computer, and I came across this true story from 2007, which I repost exactly as written then, only changing one word. I suspect any person who’s ever done horse care has a similar story to share.
It was a frigid December morning at the barn in Massachusetts where I board my two horses, with temperatures in the teens, and snow and ice dotted here and there on the frozen ground. I'd begged off going for a trail ride with my friend and fellow boarder, Diane, instead finishing up some chores. Lunchtime for the horses had come and I was about to go home when Annette, the barn owner, dashed around a corner of the barn, calling that a horse was down on the ice!
Diane and I raced over to find Annette standing by a horse lying flat on its right side, on a solid sheet of ice in a low spot of a paddock abutting the main barn and indoor ring. I felt sick with dread when I saw it was Pretty, a severely malnourished QH mare whose rescuer, Kelly, had brought her to the barn in the fall. Pretty was a shambling skeleton, her lower legs grossly swollen and barely able to function, when she arrived. Since then, she'd gained some weight, and the edema had lessened with Kelly’s devoted care, gentle handwalking and standing wraps.
But on this bitterly cold day, Pretty was still terribly gaunt, with no reserves of body fat or energy, trapped in a desperate plight that can kill healthy horses. We didn't know how long she'd been down; but it was 11:00 a.m. and she'd been turned out around 7:00. The turnout rug she was wearing was water-repellent but not waterproof. The side of it under Pretty was soaked through to her skin with ice melt.
Diane ran to her van and brought back a bag of sand so we could get some traction on the ice, while Annette took Pretty's companion, a blind gelding named Falcon, out of the paddock and back to his stall. We tried to roll Pretty onto her chest so she could get to her feet. Pretty didn't fight us; but she didn't fight to get up, either. When we had her on her chest, and paused to gather our strength, she turned her head slowly toward her belly, and stared at it. Colic? Was that why she’d gone down, or had she slipped on the ice?
We heaved and lifted and called encouragingly to Pretty, but we couldn’t get the mare up. The most we could do was to push her over near the edge of the ice sheet. Pretty wouldn't even attempt to gather her legs under her, and when we finally let her go, she sagged back flat on her side. Her eye was dull; she was shivering despite the turnout blanket covering her body and oblivious to anything outside her hypothermic misery.
Diane and I bolted into the barn, snatched up blankets, and ran back out. While Annette slipped a Navaho pad under Pretty's head and neck, Diane and I draped the blankets over her neck, shoulders and hindquarters. I tucked blanket ends under her legs as far as I could get them. All the while, Pretty lay unmoving and uncaring.
Annette keeps a special place in her heart for the broken-winged birds of the animals in her life, and by this point she was fighting off tears, on the edge of losing it. She hurried across the few dozen yards to her house, to call the vet and Kelly. Diane went back into the barn briefly, to get her responsibilities squared away before coming back to help. I stayed with Pretty, stroking her face and talking to her. I was saying goodbye to the poor girl; I didn't think she'd ever get up again.
After several minutes, I saw some life steal back into Pretty's eyes. She began feebly twitching and thrashing her legs, pausing, then moving them again -- a slight, futile movement, but a hopeful sign that the terrible draining of her vitality had stopped. When a horse in the adjoining paddock broke some ice with a loud crack, Pretty twitched her head up a little, and turned her ears and eyes toward the sound. Then, oh, then I began to hope!
A few minutes later Diane came back, as did Annette, with word that the vet had been alerted to the emergency and that Kelly was on her way. The three of us tried again to get Pretty to stand, but she still wouldn't try at all. We let her rest. I felt under her right gaskin and rump, and found them soaked with ice melt. Annette and I sped to the nearby tack room and grabbed a thick Western saddle pad and a polar fleece sheet. I bundled the sheet under Pretty's head and neck for more insulation against the ice. Then Diane and I each took hold of a hind leg at midcannon and rolled Pretty's hindquarters as high as we could while I stuffed the saddle pad under her leg and rump, as far as I could reach. Luckily Pretty didn't thrash with her unshod but sharp-edged hooves.
We couldn’t think of anything else to do at that point. There was a backhoe-loader parked nearby that could have lifted Pretty with an improvised sling, but none of us could operate it. All that remained was to wait for Kelly, as Pretty lay at our feet. Her shivering was diminishing, but still she made no effort to rise.
Fortunately, we didn’t have long to wait. Kelly’s pickup came tearing down the driveway. She was distraught but holding herself together, listening intently as Annette relayed the vet’s instructions on what to do until she could get there. Kelly syringed water and oil into the mare, who sucked it down willingly. She massaged Pretty’s belly for a while, hoping to break up any impaction that might be present. Pretty seemed more alert, so we decided to try once more to get her up. We had to get her off that ice!
Kelly clipped a lead rope to Pretty’s halter; I grabbed the withers of the mare’s turnout rug; Annette seized it at Pretty's rump; Diane took hold of her tail. Then together we heaved -- and she rolled onto her chest. We heaved -- and she scrabbled her legs underneath herself. We heaved -- and she staggered to her feet! She looked for a moment as if she'd go down again; she swayed, stumbled, then steadied and stood, what little reserves she had almost exhausted in the tremendous effort of getting up.
Diane and Annette hurried into the barn to get the indoor arena cleared for Pretty. Kelly coaxed Pretty to take a step, another, another, and got her to walk into the barn. I stayed at the mare's hip, gently pushing her to take the first few steps, then ready to catch her if she wobbled toward another fall. Once she was inside, we stripped off her drenched blanket. I put a wicking polar fleece on the mare. Diane and Annette layered warm stable blankets over it. Then Kelly led Pretty into the patch of sun by the front door. Kelly offered her hay, and the mare perked up and began eating, with no sign of any colic symptoms. I had to go before the vet arrived; but I left with renewed hope that Pretty would live.
A call to Annette that afternoon produced very good news: Pretty hadn’t colicked after all, and was doing fine. The vet had had to snip away an inch-long strip of lip that had been chopped almost off, probably by Pretty’s teeth slamming into it as she fell. That night and the next morning, the normally sweet-tempered mare was grouchy about having her right side touched, and off her grain. Kelly gave her bute for her soreness, and Pretty's appetite roared back. The following day, Pretty was her usual gentle, quietly happy self. It was as if her near brush with death had never happened.
How fortunate that Diane and I had decided not to go for that trail ride!