Ponying Up : Horses’ Accidents Spur Cable Firms to Boost Safety, Pay Medical Bills

Concerns about safety, including accidents that led to the death of one pony and the injury of at least three horses, have spurred new safety policies at GTE, whose contractors are laying cable in the Santa Rosa Valley and other parts of Ventura County.

At a community meeting Monday night, about 60 equestrian-minded residents demanded that the subsidiary, GTE americast, and its contractors make the area safer for their horses. A few said their horses either fell into trenches dug for the cable company or were scared by the machinery.

GTE americast has contracts with Cabletec Services Inc. and Lucent Technologies to install its cable lines. Representatives from all three companies attended the meeting.

The phone company subsidiary, which began offering cable service after passage of the Telecommunications Act last year, has already signed up 27,000 households in Ventura County.

The company serves Camarillo, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village and the unincorporated parts of the county, including the Santa Rosa Valley between Camarillo and Thousand Oaks.

To stay competitive, the company is preparing to service all the homes in the area by laying down fiber-optic cable to provide CD-quality sound and pictures. Its major competitor in the county is TCI Cable.

Dale Pike, a GTE project manager, said that the company has already begun employing extra precautions in equestrian areas.

Cable workers have been told to turn off their machinery when they see a horse and rider approaching; metal plates and plywood will be used to cover gaping trenches as workers lay cable; and “Open Trench” signs will be added to the regular “Construction Ahead” signs, he said.

The extra measures, which will occur whenever the company is installing cable in equestrian areas, will have a minimal cost, said Pike, a Thousand Oaks resident who is also a horse owner. He said GTE is concerned about the safety of people and their animals.

Stan Stegall of Thousand Oaks, however, questions the cable company’s sincerity.

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“They are completely uncompassionate,” he said of his dealings with Lucent Technologies after his daughter had an accident at a cable installation site.

Stegall said before the meeting that it took him months of hassle and the threats of negative publicity before the cable company offered to pay his veterinarian bill of nearly $3,000.

Windwalker, a horse belonging to his daughter, Kelly, broke his leg in a cable trench in January. His daughter also needed hospital care for her shoulder after the fall, he said, adding that Lucent officials made him sign a waiver that he wouldn’t pursue legal action in exchange for paying both medical bills, he said.

Tom Holloway, a Lucent Technologies safety manager, said he is not aware of the struggle Stegall had in being reimbursed, as the employee who worked on his claim has left the company.

Holloway added that there was some question as to who was at fault.

Monday’s meeting was arranged by Valley resident Penelope Burley, whose husband is the president of the Santa Rosa Valley Community Assn. Her horse, Dusty, fell into a 4-inch-wide, 2-foot-deep trench carved out by the cable company June 30 while she was crossing over to a nearby bridle trail, she said.

Dusty began bleeding and was taken to the county’s main horse hospital in Somis, where he was treated for a broken leg. The vet told Burley that Dusty may not recover enough to carry a rider again.

The next day, according to Norrie Schanafelt, who lives about a mile away on Honey Hill Drive, her pony, Chief, and her filly, Chyna, got spooked in her backyard by the cable workers’ “loud machinery.”

Both horses ran into a metal fence. Chief hurt his leg so badly he had to be euthanized. Chyna had less severe injuries to her leg, and the Schanafelts are waiting to see how the 9-week-old filly will fare.

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Schanafelt said Cabletec, the subcontractor hired by Lucent Technologies to lay the cable, has paid about half of her $2,500 in vet bills, but has not offered to compensate her for Chief, whom she valued at $2,000.

“We don’t know if she’ll have the chance to be a show horse anymore,” Schanafelt said. “We’re just waiting to see.”