'Horse Extrication' Makes Fire Department Get Creative

NORTH CHICAGO, IL — A north suburban fire crew had to come up with a creative solution after it was dispatched to a "horse extrication" this week.

North Chicago firefighters responding to a call of a horse that had gotten stuck in the window of its trailer had to come up with an "amazing strategy" to safely free the mare, according to Chief Dell Urban.

The "once in a career" call about the trapped horse at Full Moon Family Restaurant, 1300 Skokie Highway, came in around 7 a.m. Wednesday.

When rescuers arrived, they found the horse, "in obvious distress," stuck halfway out of a window of its trailer. They used a fire hose to wrap around the horse, forming a makeshift harness.

Then they connected the harness to a rescue rope attached to the basket of a ladder truck, which functioned as a crane to hoist the horse to safety.

The horse's owner, a Seymour, Wisconsin man, told the Lake County News-Sun he called 911 after the horse tried to jump out of the window and got stuck. He said he stopped at the restaurant for a meal and a nap on a drive home from Kentucky, where he had just bought the horse and the trailer.

Fire crews said the man tried to keep the horse calm throughout the process, placing his coat over its head to reduce distractions. He praised the way emergency personnel handled the situation.

"They all showed empathy for the horse," he told the paper. "It's a very nice ending to something that could have ended differently."

Urban complimented the crew's unconventional thinking and fast action to save the horse, who suffered only minor cuts in the incident.

The chief cited the leadership of Lt. James Axtt on the call, as well the work of shift members Battalion Chief Josh Rickabaugh and firefighters Leonard Cooksey, Marc Harman, Brian Henderson and Carlos Perez.

_{Photos via Dell Urban, North Chicago Fire Department}