A truck driver is facing animal cruelty charges in Kansas after two horses he was transporting fell inside their livestock trailer and were later euthanized.

On Oct. 31, John Caldwell of Wetumka, Okla., was hauling 15 horses from Colorado to Oklahoma when fellow motorists traveling on Interstate 70 in Salina, Kan., alerted him that some of horses inside the trailer had fallen, said Yvonne Gibbons, director of the Salina-Saline County Health Department, the agency that operates the Salina Animal Shelter and investigated the incident. Caldwell subsequently pulled off the road into a truck stop to check on the animals and discovered two horses down inside the vehicle. One had sustained fresh wounds from the fall and was bleeding from the mouth. Another was injured by other horses after falling inside the trailer.

Both animals were euthanized by a veterinarian that was called to the scene, Gibbons said.

The remaining horses were transported to Oklahoma the following day