MOTORIST’S LUCKY ESCAPE AS HIS CAR IS STRUCK BY HORSE
A MAN from Enniscorthy has described how he was lucky to escape serious injury, or worse, after a horse collided with his car in the town.
The incident occurred in the Drumgoold area of the town at around 11.30 p.m. on Sunday, March 1.
Steven Boyd, from Spring Valley, was driving home when a horse bolted out from beside a house in Drumgoold and struck his car on the driver’s side.
The impact was such that extensive damage was caused to the vehicle, including the windscreen being badly cracked and the rear passenger window being smashed.
‘It just bolted out and it hit the car right at the front pillar and then impacted with the side of the car and smashed the rear side window,’ Mr Boyd told this newspaper.
While the damage to the car was extensive, the horse appeared to be uninjured.
‘After it hit me, the horse ran up the road and stopped about 50 yards away,’ said Mr Boyd.
‘I got out of the car and then a man tried to get the horse back into the yard behind the house,’ he added.
‘I went in to where the horse was and it was going wild.’
Mr Boyd reported the incident to the gardaí.
However, he said that no one in the area appeared to own the horse and that when he went back into the yard where the horse had been taken following the accident, it was gone.
‘I only bought the car three weeks ago,’ he said.
A garage estimated that the cost of repairing Mr Boyd’s car will be in the region of €5,000.
‘I got a fright because at first I didn’t know what had happened,’ he said.
‘But it could have been a lot worse if my wife and my daughter had been with me – especially if my daughter had been in the back because that is where she usually sits, behind my seat, and that window just smashed in with the impact,’ added Mr Boyd.
A spokesperson for Enniscorthy gardai said the horse was gone when they arrived.