A Tragic Trailer Accident – Let’s learn about the survivors…

Whenever a horse person hears, “trailer accident”, it sends shivers down their spine.

Personally, anything with the word “accident” after it is bad, for sure. But the thought of a poor animal trapped in the place where we locked him – is awful.

TRAGEDY

The tragedy was that the truck tire blew.

Now, I’m a very responsible truck and trailer owner and I’ve had tires blow. Sometimes a tire sat too long in a bad spot and sometimes I haven’t had correct pressure in the tires. I feel very lucky that nothing happened to me or my horses.

This week, one poor woman was not so lucky. She was driving home from an event. At 1:30 in the afternoon, her right front truck tire blew tire. She lost control. The whole rig, towing 6 horses, overturned and struck a tree. Inside were 6 horses – 3 Polo Ponies and 3 Warmbloods.

The driver was flown to the hospital and she is in critical condition. 2 of the Warmbloods survived. It wasn’t clear who owned the horses.

: Rescue workers righting the trailer

ALAQUA

Alaqua Animal Refuge stepped up to house and take care of the injured horses.

I am amazed that those stunned horses would even get into a trailer to make it to Alaqua, but they did. Their names are Utah and GQ. Both boys were walking although they looked dazed.

One poor boy had to suffer through the crew removing the body of his trailer mate on top of him. Awful. Poor guy.

As these horses arrived to safety, Alaqua provided a vet – who SPENT THE NIGHT OUTSIDE THE STALLS! Wow. (I wish I had that kind of pull…) The vet was afraid of internal injuries and wanted to be nearby to monitor these shocky horses.

So far, so good. They have serious cuts and bruises, but no signs if anything else just yet. Nothing will be certain until more time has passed.

: GQ and Sam Graves, Alaqua Animal Refuge’s adoption coordinator

THE OTHER LITTLE BEINGS

Two dogs were also rescued at the scene (Sophia 14, Paco 1) along with one who didn’t make it…

When the wonderful people from Alaqua called the phone number on the dogs’ tags to let someone know the dogs were safe, a family member told them that there was another dog and a grey manx cat traveling as well. Luckily, after going back to the crash site, the 4th dog was found (no name or age yet).

: Teeka: Found the next day in the woods…

UPDATES

We are in contact with Alaqua and will give you updates. The horses are quite lovely, strong and in-shape. So, I’m hoping for the best.

I’ve asked about Utah and GQ’s their personalities and the staff says that other than being ‘willing’, these two guys are still very quiet and not showing much personality – makes sense after all they have been through.

: This is Utah.

LOVE AND COMPASSION

I looked at these photos and saw tremendous love and compassion.

Y’know, in a world where so many are fighting for animal rights, it is a relief to see the love on these caretakers’ faces.

I sure hope the driver of the truck and trailer has compassion for herself. If it was me, I think I would feel absolutely horrible for the lost lives and for the injury, hurt, and loss onto others. It would be very difficult…

PHOTO JOURNAL

Here is a photojournal of the first day of the rescue.