By Kelly: Two horses were electrocuted at the stables where I board my horse. The first died at about 10 am. The owner's daughter was leading the horse into the indoor arena when it suddenly squealed then started convulsing and went down. I was grooming my horse when I heard her screaming for help.
The horse continued to convulse for another 3-5 minutes before it died. I was the most horrific thing I have seen in a long time.(I'm an ICU nurse--I've seen alot!) We thought the horse must have ruptured an aneurysm, she was 18 years old. Everyone at the barn was shook up, but 2 of us decided to go down trail anyhow, what else could we do? At 11:30 we got a call on the cell phone, get back to the barn, another horse has died!! What??? You've got to be kidding!! This can't be happening!! Then we found out the second horse died in the indoor arena, in the same general area as the first! In hindsite, in between the 2 deaths, a pony led into the arena reared and got away from the girl leading him...no way would that pony go back toward that area...everyone figured it sensed death had occurred...then another very bomb proof horse did the same thing...again... horses have been known to sense death and react strangly. My friend then led her horse into the arena, decided to lead her over to the area, to make sure she wouldn't be afraid. The horse balked, but then followed her owner, collapsed and died almost instantaneously. We had about 4 inches of rain on Tuesday, and there was some flooding of the indoor arena. We came to find out an electrical line was buried under this arena to feed the back barn, built at a later date. The two horses that died had shoes on both back & front,conducting a lethal amount of electricity to the horses. The pony and bomb proof horse only had front shoes, so they got shocked, but not enough to kill them. It was a horrible day. Thank god no one was riding, and no people were injured or killed. I still can't believe this happened. It is a nightmare. Kelly NE Ohio
