Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/horses-rescued-canada-flood/

Recently, British Columbia experienced some biblical downpours which led to flooding across the Canadian province. As a result, Merritt was one of the towns that was hit by the floodwaters, which were both fast-moving and freezing cold.

Since the town has a lot of farmland, some of its residents, Jerry McCauley and Connie Joe, were caught in a nightmare situation: Their 29 horses were trapped within one of the hayfields by the floodwaters.

It was an overnight occurrence, and when they went out in the morning to check, they were shocked and horrified to see that their horses were surrounded by what looked like a river. The horses were panicking, unable to get to higher ground, but they weren’t about to abandon their horses to a freezing fate.

They reached out to Henry Chillihitzia, a machine loader operator and former bull rider, asking for help. Chillihitzia immediately rushed out to the farm to help wrangle all 29 equines out of the dangerous floodwaters. They did it with the help of motorboats, tractors, and of course, some Good Samaritans.

According to a CBC Radio interview, the experienced cowboy is no stranger to corralling animals while on horseback, but doing it in a motorboat was certainly a first-time experience! It took four hours and a lot of dedication, but eventually, all 29 horses were brought back to safety.

As he explained to CBC Radio, at first, they tried wrangling the horses on horseback like they normally would, but it quickly became apparent that the waters were too deep and way too fast. That is when they turned to motorboats as their second option.

They had a hard time in the beginning because they had to convince the horses to swim to safety. They tried and tried, and eventually got the whole herd to dive in and swim to higher ground.

Chillihitzia shared some early videos from the rescue, writing on Facebook, “Still trying to get the horses to move out they won’t. I’ll give it one more shot new boat motor is on its way.”

Once the rescue mission was complete and all 29 horses were safe, he went back to social media to make the happy update that read, “I am in tears of joy we got the horses out of the water onto dry land, all horses accounted for thank you God. What a rush.”

Following the rescue, Chillihitzia opened up about the experience in the interview, calling it an emotional moment in time.

He said, “I had a lump in my throat the whole time, so my emotions were pretty high. And I own horses myself, so they’re kind of like my kids, right? That’s my first time doing that in a boat. I knew if we didn’t do anything then, yeah, my heart probably would have shattered in two billion pieces.”

Also updating the internet on the status of the rescued horses was McCauley’s own daughter, who wrote, “They are all OK, no more shivering, and bellies full of hay!” she wrote. “Huge thank you to everyone who was out there all day in the cold and rain and wind doing everything possible to save them!”

If you want to hear the entirety of Chillihitizia’s interview with CBC Radio, click here.

Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog