With at least 1,000 horses housed near the Meadows Racetrack & Casino and the rural nature of northern Washington County, investing in a large-animal response team was "long overdue," said North Strabane Fire Chief Mark Grimm.
North Strabane and Peters now jointly operate the only such rescue unit in the county -- one that's been tested more than a half-dozen times since its inception last year.
Although crews use the same process to save an animal as they do a person, the difference is in the approach and the equipment, said Peters Fire Capt. Marc Scott.
"Some people don't realize that when you come on the scene at an incident, things are chaotic. And when large animals are involved, you can't have that," he said.
Much of the training the two departments received detailed how animals respond in emergencies and how to best approach anxious animals during high-stress situations, Capt. Scott said.
"It's a completely different animal, if you will," Chief Grimm said. "You are dealing not only with a live animal, but a very large, wild animal."
"It's a little scary -- sometimes you are dealing with animals that weigh five times as much as you," he added.
The training helped firefighters learn how to use the harnesses, ropes and slides that are employed in large-animal rescues -- equipment that both men said has served them well this past year.
So far, the team has responded to calls that included horses trapped in a barn fire; a horse stuck in mud; and a horse that fell through the ice on a Nottingham Township pond during the heavy snowstorms in February.
Rescuing the horse that had fallen through the ice was especially challenging, Mr. Scott said, because it was difficult to assess the situation.
"First off, you have 24 inches of snow to deal with," he said. "And all you could see was the horse's head -- so we didn't know how big he was."
Then there are the well-intentioned folks at the scene who don't understand animal rescue.
"What do you think people are going to try?" Capt. Scott asked. "They are going to try to get a rope and pull him out by the neck."
The horse was rescued after firefighters cut a trench in the ice near the animal and affixed a harness and rope system to pull him back to solid ground. After the rescue, veterinarians gave the horse intravenous fluids to help increase his body temperature and he was returned to his owner.
Capt. Scott added that the fire department's job isn't finished when the animal is safe but when the scene is secure.
"Now we have a bigger problem," he said of the post-rescue efforts. "We have to control that horse."
Injured people would be placed in an ambulance, he said.
Although veterinarians respond to animal rescue calls with the fire department, it's largely up to the animal owner how much treatment will be administered.
"It's a neat learning curve -- it's something that's very different," he said.
Peters Fire Chief Dan Coyle did not have the total cost for the program but said the only cost to the townships was a "few thousand dollars for training."
First Published: September 2, 2010, 10:15 a.m.