TECHNICIAN UPDATE
Stuck in the Mud: The Importance of a Team By Tammy Treitline, CVT June 18, 2018 started out the same as any other workday in our northeastern North Dakota hospital: routine equine health care appointments consisting of dental floats, vaccinations and sheath cleaning. I made the mistake of thinking to myself “pretty light day, might even get a lunch break, and—best of all— appointments are inside the clinic and out of the cloudy, cold, potentially rainy weather outside.” Appointments were showing up on time until about 10:30 am and that is when the day started to change. The 11:00 am-scheduled appointment was an equine dental float in the clinic, but the owner called at 10:30 and asked if we could make a farm visit for lacerations instead of a clinic appointment. Apparently, the horse reared up while loading in the trailer, fell over, and now had blood coming from the nostril and lacerations on the head and legs. The owner was extremely concerned, so we canceled the in-clinic appointment, moved the remaining ap-
pointments to another veterinarian and headed out on the road. Luckily, the horse was okay, just minor lacerations and swelling from the fall. While we were at that farm, the clinic called asking if we could go to another emergency call. We agreed and had them move the afternoon appointments to the other available veterinarian. The second emergency was described as, “a horse stuck in mud by a river bank, with water up to his belly and he could not lift up enough to get onto a 2 foot bank to get to dry land.” The owner of the horse called the clinic looking for a horse sling. They wanted some type of sling/ harness to assist the horse forward or to lift the entire horse out of the mud. Unfortunately, our clinic did not have that piece of equipment, but the clinic thought we might be able to assist the horse and owner in the situation. Keep in mind that this is North Dakota so the distance between places is far. It was going to take us close to an hour and 15 minutes to get to there. We finished up at the first farm then headed in the direction of the horse stuck in the mud. We left about 12:45 p.m., just as it started to rain with temperatures in mid-to-upper 60s. I called the cell phone of the owner of the horse to let them know we were en route
We were faced
with finding the
fastest and safest way to remove a 1,000 lb horse
from a river made slippery by mud
Images courtesy of Dr. Kingsley
and grass.
On the left: The horse was unable to climb onto the side. On the right, rescue personnel put the horse on a small John boat so he would not drown.
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Issue 7/2021 | ModernEquineVet.com
