In today’s world, a natural or man-made disaster can strike at any time. The only defense we have is preparation. Unfortunately, many animals are dragged, stranded, drowned, or dropped during attempted rescues by untrained personnel. Rescuers often get hurt, and the animals might be more injured by the rescue than they were during the accident. Rescuing these animals shouldn’t be a rodeo. Many large animal rescues promoted on television networks show only a part of the story. Close review of these cases has revealed that many of these rescues caused further injury or death. Television networks glamorize these rescue events, but fail to show the follow-up, which can be deleterious effects on the health of the animal. Unfortunately, duplication of these rescue techniques are inevitable because someone might have seen a rescue event on TV that didn’t use appropriate rescue standard methods.

As an equine veterinarian or a horse owner, there will be a time in one’s career that you will encounter the unthinkable: A horse in a sinkhole, a trailer accident, a horse trapped in mud, or maybe a horse that has fallen down an embankment. Are you prepared to face these disasters? I wasn’t the first time I had to respond to a trailer accident on an expressway in Phoenix, Ariz.

I was just out of veterinary school and thought I was prepared. I had the medical background, but how were we going to rescue these horses from the trailer, then turn the trailer over? It was on a busy expressway, and it was evening. All the windows were shattered, with glass everywhere. It was a two-horse trailer on its side with one horse on top of the other. The lights from the passing cars were blinding.

Fire/rescue departments, EMS, and law enforcement personnel are trained to respond effectively to any emergency involving people. Emergency responders have attempted to use their human rescue techniques to help rescue these large animals. Unfortunately, these animals are very strong and large, resulting in techniques in which human standards of care are disregarded. Luckily, with the help of the local fire department and the use of their fire hoses, we were able to pull the injured horses from the trailer. That was my first experience with Technical Equine Rescue (TER)