1,200-pound horse named Lucky rescued after being swallowed by sinkhole up to her neck
A horse named Lucky lived up to her name when she was rescued from a muddy California sinkhole that swallowed her up to her neck.
Astonishing images showed the 20-year-old Paso Fino stuck in San Fernando Valley on Wednesday with almost all of her body trapped in the tight hole.
It took more than 60 firefighters and rescuers three hours to finally pull the 1,200-pound horse to safety — with Lucky miraculously able to trot away with only a minor injury.
Lucky’s owner, Maria Lastre, was riding in her backyard when the ground suddenly gave way, sucking her horse into the soft soil.
“I thought she tripped on a walkway and she had just fallen down on her front legs,” Juan Lastre, Maria’s husband, told KTLA. “But my wife fell over [Lucky]. She stepped in this hole and just sank, and she got deeper and deeper, and deeper.”
Maria was able to dismount Lucky and get to safety, but her mare wound up trapped in the sinkhole, with only her head and neck sticking out of the mud.
After trying, and failing, to free Lucky on his own, Lastre called for help. Some 61 firefighters, Animal Services staffers, and Sanitation Department workers rushed to the scene with an excavator in tow.
“We gingerly used shovels to begin with, but that didn’t get enough so we brought in heavy equipment with a bucket,” LAFD Captain Erik Scott said.
Scott added that Lucky was “fatigued” and firefighters were trying to keep her calm.
First responders built a trench to prevent excavated soil from falling back into the sinkhole, where Lucky was showing signs of distress.
After three hours of painstaking digging, rescuers managed to get a harness over the exhausted horse and hoist her out of the pit.
Lucky trotted away from the harrowing ordeal caked with mud up to her neck and with a gash on her leg — but her owner said it could have been much worse.
“I thought she wasn’t going to be able to walk because she was in there cramped for three hours,” Lastre said. “But I just couldn’t believe it. She’s eating which is a good sign and walking. Her legs didn’t get damaged.”
Lucky was later bathed and brought back to her stable to rest and enjoy some carrots. She will continue recuperating for the next few days, before being saddled up again sometime next week.
Maria Lastre, who was riding Lucky when disaster struck, suffered an injury to her chest after slamming into the saddle horn, leaving her in pain.
Juan Lastre said he suspects that the drenching rainstorms that walloped the San Fernando Valley in recent days, combined with a broken pipe, may have caused the sinkhole to open up.
