The Louisiana State Animal Response Team rescued a 25-year-old geriatric horse Nov. 9 from the rising flood waters of the Ouachita River in West Monroe.Tess Cooper, the horse’s owner, asked her veterinarian for assistance in moving her horse to dry ground before the water rose too high, according to Rebecca McConnico, LSART Equine Branch Director and associate professor of equine medicine at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine.Cooper’s veterinarian, Jay Wharford, contacted McConnico, who coordinated a plan to rescue the horse using a pontoon boat provided by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.The team was composed of Mustajab Mirza, University assistant professor of equine surgery; Michelle Woodward, equine medicine and surgery intern at the University; University equine technician Cindy Meeker; and LSART Deputy Director Becky Adcock.The family built a fence around the high area of its property where they thought the horse would be safe, but the water continued to rise, and they felt they needed to move him, Meeker said. “If she had waited, it would have been very dangerous to try and go get this horse standing in water,” Meeker said.This was the first large response mission since the LSART unit’s ribbon cutting ceremony in September, Mirza said.Mirza said the horse was given general anesthesia and then loaded onto a glide, a large animal stretcher. The team then used a ramp to lower the horse onto the boat, and he was taken to safety.Mirza said because the horse underwent an intravenous catheter, the team had to race against the clock.”You have an hour to pretty much wrap up everything,” he said. “You don’t want to go past it if you can help it.”Mirza said the team was able to finish the entire process in two hours, and because the vet school conducts large animal emergency rescue training, working with horses in disaster situations is becoming routine.”Anytime you put a horse under general anesthesia, there are complications,” Woodward said. “Especially with the waking up part of it.”Woodward said the horse could have fractured a bone, woken up while still on the boat or possibly not have woken up at all.But Woodward said the horse was healthy and everything went smoothly.”I don’t think it could have been better organized,” Woodward said. “We couldn’t have done it without Wildlife and Fisheries.”Mirza said horses who require rescue is a seasonal occurrence.”Natural disasters are positively correlated with these requests,” he said.McConnico said Hurricane Katrina was the catalyst that made the nation take notice of the importance of animal planning in times of emergency.”For us, we don’t want it to ever be that way again,” she said. “Every time there’s a disaster, we are more ready and better prepared.”
 
 
 
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