Post by SarahW on Nov 4, 2009 10:04:21 GMT 1
This article appeared in the Listening Post earlier this year - please read about the Emergency Services Protocol from the link below.
Call out the Fire Brigade!
The young woman stood in the trees and screamed and just kept on screaming. Her friend knelt by her own horse and wept. The shocked bystander ran around the corner and yelled “come on!” at the approaching firemen, “you’ve got to help, get a vet! Get a vet!”
The firemen continued to walk calmly towards her and refused to run. “Come on!” she shouted, “hurry up, there’s two horses caught in the fence”.
The first fireman reached the woman and took her to one side “Tell me what’s happened,” he said…
Rachel tries to calm her “horse”.
And that was the beginning of the practical exercise for potential Animal Rescue Team members at Lyndhurst fire station. Out in their paddock (not every fire station has got one!) two life sized manikins of horses had been firmly wedge in a barbed wire fence and trapped in the trees. Once Rachel, who is a determined actress, had been persuaded to calm down, the rescue team set about their work in almost complete silence – real horse whisperers? Covering the tiniest details, for example, mock sedating the two plastic horses, wearing all the right protective kit, using the correct specially designed equipment and working as a coherent team, the students work seriously and diligently to remove the horses from danger into a safe place. After the exercise, there was a full debriefing.
How many firemen does it take to change a light bulb?
I was deeply impressed (no, not just by the uniforms!) with the calm, clear way that they all worked. As a horse owner, I felt that I would have had complete faith in them.
I had been a little dubious when Jim Green, Animal Rescue Specialist of Hampshire Fire Service had asked me to find him three women for the afternoon! You can imagine, there was no shortage of volunteers. I was also invited to attend the morning session as an observer and to comment if I so wished on the two practical exercises which took place. The first involved removing a “bull” from a ditch, the second, a “horse” with a foot caught through the floor of a trailer.
Sparkle is finally out of the woods….
I first met Jim at a talk he gave about his work at a local riding club. He explained that Hampshire were the first Fire Service to have a dedicated Animal Rescue Team and that they are now involved in training fire officers and vets nationally. He had a clear understanding of the horse’s psychology and the emotional impact of an accident on the horse’s owner. “When we got to a fire”, he said, “everyone is running towards us and away from the fire. When we go to a horse accident or a horse fire, everyone is running towards it instead!” He talked about how owners can help their horses by keeping as calm as possible and not stimulating or releasing the horse themselves. “It’s important that the horse has got a safe place to go and a safe way of getting there and we won’t try to release a trapped horse until we are sure about that. If a horse is trapped in an overturned or broken down trailer on the motorway for instance, it’s critical not to try to release it until the traffic has been stopped in both directions.” With a carefully compiled list of vets, the Animal Rescue Teams will seek to get a horse sedated so that it is less likely to be injured and to injure people as it is released.
You Tube is an invaluable source of cautionary tales which Jim employs to illustrate just how dangerous a rescue situation can become. Horses falling into rivers, horses trapped in trees and fences, horses on their sides in a toppled trailer. The worst one shows a couple of horses that have fallen through the slats of a huntsman’s bridge. The owner, screaming her head off, inadvertently stimulates the horses as a group of firemen, dressed like wasps, all run towards the scene. One takes a chainsaw to the underneath of the bridge immediately below a 750 kg horse that by now is flailing its legs and eventually somersaults over the side of the bridge taking the noisy owner with it. This sets off the other horse which eventually does the same, narrowly missing the half drowned owner as it falls. Alls well that ends well in that particular case but it is the sort of footage you watch with your face hidden behind your fingers.
Time to relax
Hampshire Animal Rescue Team are pioneers in animal rescue work in Britain. They work with the British Equestrian Veterinary Association and have been instrumental in setting up and promoting the Emergency Services Protocol which sets a national standard for the recovery of horses. The overall aim is not just to increase the horse’s chance of survival but also to reduce the risk of injury to vets, emergency services personnel and the general public. In parallel, they have also developed emergency equipment which makes rescuing animals much safer for everyone involved.
It’s very reassuring to know that your local Animal Rescue Team is the best that there can be and that they take the rescue of horses (and other animals) so seriously.
Jim Green and Monty Roberts talking at the RA Conference
I am hopeful that Intelligent Horsemanship as an organisation will be able to offer help and training for Animal Rescue Teams across the country. Two Fire Officers attended my loading course last weekend and learned little bits of technique that will help them to get horses on to trailers following an incident. We discussed issues such as sedation and they agreed that it was always better to let the horse recover from the sedation before it was asked to travel again. They also got the chance to work with the panels and assess whether they might be useful at the scene of an accident especially where traffic needed to be cleared as quickly as possible. For me it was a great opportunity to check whether my health and safety procedures and team working skills were up to scratch.
Buster Brown works with Rowan – loading first time
Call out the Fire Brigade!
The young woman stood in the trees and screamed and just kept on screaming. Her friend knelt by her own horse and wept. The shocked bystander ran around the corner and yelled “come on!” at the approaching firemen, “you’ve got to help, get a vet! Get a vet!”
The firemen continued to walk calmly towards her and refused to run. “Come on!” she shouted, “hurry up, there’s two horses caught in the fence”.
The first fireman reached the woman and took her to one side “Tell me what’s happened,” he said…
Rachel tries to calm her “horse”.
And that was the beginning of the practical exercise for potential Animal Rescue Team members at Lyndhurst fire station. Out in their paddock (not every fire station has got one!) two life sized manikins of horses had been firmly wedge in a barbed wire fence and trapped in the trees. Once Rachel, who is a determined actress, had been persuaded to calm down, the rescue team set about their work in almost complete silence – real horse whisperers? Covering the tiniest details, for example, mock sedating the two plastic horses, wearing all the right protective kit, using the correct specially designed equipment and working as a coherent team, the students work seriously and diligently to remove the horses from danger into a safe place. After the exercise, there was a full debriefing.
How many firemen does it take to change a light bulb?
I was deeply impressed (no, not just by the uniforms!) with the calm, clear way that they all worked. As a horse owner, I felt that I would have had complete faith in them.
I had been a little dubious when Jim Green, Animal Rescue Specialist of Hampshire Fire Service had asked me to find him three women for the afternoon! You can imagine, there was no shortage of volunteers. I was also invited to attend the morning session as an observer and to comment if I so wished on the two practical exercises which took place. The first involved removing a “bull” from a ditch, the second, a “horse” with a foot caught through the floor of a trailer.
Sparkle is finally out of the woods….
I first met Jim at a talk he gave about his work at a local riding club. He explained that Hampshire were the first Fire Service to have a dedicated Animal Rescue Team and that they are now involved in training fire officers and vets nationally. He had a clear understanding of the horse’s psychology and the emotional impact of an accident on the horse’s owner. “When we got to a fire”, he said, “everyone is running towards us and away from the fire. When we go to a horse accident or a horse fire, everyone is running towards it instead!” He talked about how owners can help their horses by keeping as calm as possible and not stimulating or releasing the horse themselves. “It’s important that the horse has got a safe place to go and a safe way of getting there and we won’t try to release a trapped horse until we are sure about that. If a horse is trapped in an overturned or broken down trailer on the motorway for instance, it’s critical not to try to release it until the traffic has been stopped in both directions.” With a carefully compiled list of vets, the Animal Rescue Teams will seek to get a horse sedated so that it is less likely to be injured and to injure people as it is released.
You Tube is an invaluable source of cautionary tales which Jim employs to illustrate just how dangerous a rescue situation can become. Horses falling into rivers, horses trapped in trees and fences, horses on their sides in a toppled trailer. The worst one shows a couple of horses that have fallen through the slats of a huntsman’s bridge. The owner, screaming her head off, inadvertently stimulates the horses as a group of firemen, dressed like wasps, all run towards the scene. One takes a chainsaw to the underneath of the bridge immediately below a 750 kg horse that by now is flailing its legs and eventually somersaults over the side of the bridge taking the noisy owner with it. This sets off the other horse which eventually does the same, narrowly missing the half drowned owner as it falls. Alls well that ends well in that particular case but it is the sort of footage you watch with your face hidden behind your fingers.
Time to relax
Hampshire Animal Rescue Team are pioneers in animal rescue work in Britain. They work with the British Equestrian Veterinary Association and have been instrumental in setting up and promoting the Emergency Services Protocol which sets a national standard for the recovery of horses. The overall aim is not just to increase the horse’s chance of survival but also to reduce the risk of injury to vets, emergency services personnel and the general public. In parallel, they have also developed emergency equipment which makes rescuing animals much safer for everyone involved.
It’s very reassuring to know that your local Animal Rescue Team is the best that there can be and that they take the rescue of horses (and other animals) so seriously.
Jim Green and Monty Roberts talking at the RA Conference
I am hopeful that Intelligent Horsemanship as an organisation will be able to offer help and training for Animal Rescue Teams across the country. Two Fire Officers attended my loading course last weekend and learned little bits of technique that will help them to get horses on to trailers following an incident. We discussed issues such as sedation and they agreed that it was always better to let the horse recover from the sedation before it was asked to travel again. They also got the chance to work with the panels and assess whether they might be useful at the scene of an accident especially where traffic needed to be cleared as quickly as possible. For me it was a great opportunity to check whether my health and safety procedures and team working skills were up to scratch.
Buster Brown works with Rowan – loading first time