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California

Horse, trapped upside down, couldn’t be hoisted by helicopter. Specialist saves the day

More than a dozen rescuers surround a horse trapped in a dirt ditch.
Rescuers work at digging around a horse wedged in a ditch in Sylmar on Sunday afternoon.
(Los Angeles Fire Department)
By Christopher GoffardStaff Writer 
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A horse stumbled into a narrow dirt ditch and was trapped upside down in Sylmar on Sunday afternoon but was quickly extricated unharmed with the aid of a “horse rescue specialist.”

Rescue workers arrived at a trail off Olive View Drive just after 4:30 p.m. to find the horse inverted in the earth, according to a Los Angeles City Fire Department news release.

A horse is shown on a dirt trail with a couple of rescuers nearby.
After being trapped, the horse walked free.
(Los Angeles Fire Department)

The horse’s position made a helicopter-hoisting operation unfeasible, but the horse-rescue specialist from L.A. Animal Services’ Specialized Mobile Animal Rescue Team helped devise a plan to dig around the horse so it could move to its side, the release said.

The horse soon walked free. The horse’s rider was uninjured.

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Christopher Goffard

Christopher Goffard is an author and a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. He shared in the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s Bell coverage and has twice been a Pulitzer finalist for feature writing, in 2007 and 2014. His novel “Snitch Jacket” was a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel. His book “You Will See Fire: A Search for Justice in Kenya,” based on his Times series, was published in 2011.

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