The first rescue of its kind for many local first responders after a horse was stuck on ice in Selkirk. 

Rescue personnel were called to 279 Jericho Rd around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 15, after the owner of the horse made a phone call to Selkirk Fire Station #2.

The caller was advised to call 911 and report the situation. At this point in time, Chief Tom Neri of Selkirk Fire was notified of the impending call and started making his way to the scene. 

“We assumed the horse was in a pond or some kind of water,” Chief Neri said. 

After almost arriving on scene and still no dispatch, Chief Neri called the dispatchers to dispatch Selkirk Fire to the scene to work with New York State Fire and Town of Bethlehem Animal Control already on scene. 

The horse was discovered to be laying down on a patch of ice over solid ground, unable to stand on its own. 

Firefighters were planning what to do while awaiting the arrival of an on-call vet to arrive at the scene to evaluate the horse before any rescue efforts were made. 

“We waited until the vet showed up,” Neri said. “The vet had specialized straps for lifting horses, which we don’t carry because we very rarely ever lift horses.” 

The vet instructed firefighters on what the plan was and how to safely execute the plan to get the horse on its feet. 

“Initially we got the straps under the horse and we pulled the horse off the ice,” Neri said. 

Since the ice was over solid ground, crews didn’t have to worry about ice water rescue as they initially thought. 

“We drug the horse about 15 or 20 feet to where the ground was mostly snow so the horse would be able to get its footing once we went to lift it,” Neri said. 

Crews re-adjusted the straps to roll the horse over in an attempt to use momentum to help the horse onto its feet. 

Neri says the horse was laying down for over two hours, so the horse wasn’t strong enough to stand up at first. 

After letting the horse rest for a few minutes and straps were adjusted again, the vet gave the clearance to try and lift again and the horse was able to get back onto its feet. 

“We stayed with the horse for a little while to make sure the horse didn’t fall again before the vet gave us the OK to leave,” Neri said. 

In Chief Neri’s long career in the fire service, he says this is the first call regarding lifting a horse and only the second horse rescue that he can recall in his career. 

Members of State Fire that were on scene had just completed a class for rescues involving large animals and Neri said they are also in the process of buying a tripod to assist with rescues involving lifting large animals like this. 

“I’ve been through there since and the horse is still walking around,” Neri said. “It’s an old horse and it was cold from being down and it was stiff. It had a hard time and we did what we had to do.”