Animal Adventures

The Lang family of Whidbey Island Station in Washington owns five horses, but on the morning of March 2, only four could be found. The family began a search and discovered that Blaze, the missing horse, was in deep trouble — 15 feet deep, to be precise. The horse had broken through a barrier around 10 a.m. and fallen down a concrete well. Rescue workers from the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station dropped in and sedated the horse, and North Whidbey and Central Whidbey Fire & Rescue crews were able to get a harness around Blaze and lift all 2,000 pounds of equine out of the hole using an excavator from a neighbor’s farm. Blaze received an IV and was treated for a few minor cuts, but otherwise was unhurt in the incident. “If he had gone down any other way, he wouldn’t be alive,” owner Karl Lang told KING-TV 5. “Luckily he went down heinie first.”