Volunteers nurse ‘almost dead’ horse back to health

A group of volunteers were called to a building site in East Durham, England to check on a pony who was thought to be dead. Luckily, they still found her breathing.

British Horse Society (BHS) volunteers received a call from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) where a resident asked them to check on an animal at the East Durham building site back in April 2018. A volunteer from BHS first saw the horse lying on the mud and trash, and said she was horrified that the animal might already be dead. She immediately called for assistance. She documented the whole rescue and recovery of the horse, and uploaded it on the Here4Horses YouTube channel.

“When rescuers turned up, they met with a knackerman who had been called by the owner to come and collect her body,” Wendy Suddes, a horse welfare and education specialist and from the charity Here4Horses, told Bored Panda in an interview. “Whether he thought she was already dead is irrelevant – she had been subject to the most awful suffering.”

The horse is called Heidi, and she was already considered critically ill. She was very weak to the point that she cannot stand or walk.

“The early days were touch and go, as we dealt with her serious weakness and such a low blood protein level that a plasma transfusion was required,” Wendy said.

Healthy horses donated several liters of blood for Heidi, which eventually helped her stand by herself after more than five weeks into recovery.

“Too many sores, worms, parasites and infections had been given time to take hold and it took months and moths to get Heidi well enough to run free in our pastures,” Wendy said.