Elvis the horse in dramatic rescue from swamp

Firefighters had to use all their ingenuity to rescue a horse after it became almost fully submerged in a muddy swamp. Elvis, a 14-hand stallion, was stuck up to his neck in mud when owner Margaret Hill found him. The 59-year-old grandmother said she feared the worst when she first saw her three-year-old Welsh cob trapped in boggy ground within nearby scrubland.

A specialist technical rescue team from the West Midlands Fire Service raced to help the distressed horse alongside crews from Coventry fire station, who formed a ten-strong team who slowly pulled the horse to safety. One technician, James Halton, donned a dry suit and jumped into the 20-metre square mud pit. With help from the rest of the team, he managed to shovel away enough mud from around the horse to fit strops in place underneath his stomach and around his front legs.



Watch Manger Pete Drummond who was first to arrive at the scene said, 'I left the vehicle and ran the quarter of a mile distance through woodland tracks to get to the horse, as we heard from the owner that it was now almost fully submerged. With the assistance of my crew, three potential rescue plans were put in place. The horse was clearly in distress and it was crucial that we acted quickly to get him out alive.' Margaret said the rescue, which took crews just over two hours, was a tremendous achievement.

She said: 'I cannot praise the crews enough for what they did. I didn’t think there was any chance they’d manage to pull him out alive but they did. They were absolutely brilliant, true gentlemen and I am extremely grateful to them.' She said Elvis was doing welll despite his ordeal. 'The vet came out, his heart is racing slightly and he’s given him antibiotics as a precaution. He has a bit of conjunctivitis, we will monitor him for the next three days, he is eating,' added Margaret.

With more photos.