GOLD BAR — Teton took a tumble.
The brown-and-white mare somehow survived the 50-foot fall down an embankment Monday afternoon. Firefighters then managed to get the 900-pound animal to safety using a harness, plenty of rope and a pulley system.
Teton was with a group of horses and riders from a nearby ranch. They were using a dirt trail that runs between Reiter Road and the Skykomish River, between Gold Bar and Index.
For some reason, around 3 p.m., Teton bucked. Her rider was thrown to safety. Teton wasn’t so lucky.
Across the river, Arden and Dick King heard yelling.
“In all the years we’ve lived here, we’ve watched those horses go and come and nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Arden, 73. “It was just a freak thing.”
She watched a construction worker who’d been hired by some neighbors run across the river to help. The water was chest-high on his way to Teton.
“He was comforting her and keeping her still and quieting her,” King said. “He had horse sense and was horse-savvy and knew what to do. He was soaking wet when he got back.”
It took Gold Bar fire Lt. Brandon Vargas less than five minutes to get there. At first, the rescuers didn’t know the rider was safe, he said. Friends had taken the rider to a nearby house while some of the others stayed behind.
Two of Gold Bar’s volunteer firefighters who know about horses determined Teton had no broken bones, Vargas said.
“We had to come up with a plan on how to get the horse back up to the trail,” he said. “The horse was getting kind of antsy. Leaving the horse down there for a long period of time was just going to make things worse.”
The Index firefighters happened to have a horse-rescue harness. Vargas has been a firefighter for nearly a decade and has been involved in numerous rescues of people after outdoor mishaps.
“This was a whole new experience for me, to try to get a horse up an embankment,” he said.
The harness was crucial. The crews attached ropes and got a pulley system set up using a tree. The trail was surprisingly muddy, Vargas said.
The firefighters used machetes to clear brush and blackberry bushes. They found a cattle fence among the weeds and cut it out so Teton wouldn’t be impaled if she stumbled again.
A half-dozen people helped pull up the horse, while another used a rope to guide Teton where they needed her to go. She used her hooves to scramble up as they pulled.
“She ended up doing a lot of the work and just following that guide rope,” Vargas said. “She definitely did not want to be down there anymore.”
By 4:05 p.m., Teton was back on the trail and being put into a horse trailer. Her owner whisked her off for medical treatment.
She had some nasty cuts from the fall, but otherwise was OK.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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