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Published on Monday, July 26, 2004
in the Miami Herald
The Florida Highway Patrol had to corral an unlikely visitor on Interstate 75 Sunday morning: an escaped horse.
The 2-year-old filly had apparently jumped a fence from a nearby field. It was hit by an automobile and eventually had to be euthanized.
Motorists on the interstate watched the drama unfold as FHP officials and others tried to corral the seriously injured horse to no avail.
''She was running up and down the highway with a [nearly] severed leg,'' said Laurie Waggoner, director of the South Florida American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.``FHP couldn't catch her -- she ran every time they went near.''
According to FHP officials and others involved in the incident, this is what happened:
Shortly before noon, a state trooper found the filly limping on the southbound median along Northwest 170th Street, near the Dade-Broward line.
Minutes before, it appears the horse had been galloping freely in expressway traffic. An automobile struck it, nearly severing its rear left leg.
''It was vehicle versus horse,'' said FHP Lt. Regina Sellers.
The driver was on the scene when the trooper arrived. Damage to the car was unknown. No traffic lanes of I-75 had to be closed.
They determined the horse, dark brown with a white patch on its forehead, apparently had escaped from a nearby field, where cattle also grazed. A portion of the fence, which is less than five feet high, had been trampled.
''[She] probably got pretty confused,'' said Lloyd Brown of Wildlife Rescue of Dade County. ``It was a young horse.''
Faced with how to apprehend the horse, troopers called in wildlife rescuers and the ASPCA.
In driving rain, the struggle to stop the horse continued. Finally, the injured animal crossed back over the interstate, as if trying to get back to the fenced field from where authorities believe she may have escaped.
The horse fell into a ditch on the side of the highway away from traffic; its head came to rest against the fence it had apparently jumped.
The animal -- which weighed less than 1,000 pounds -- flailed about until a veterinarian euthanized it with an injection to the neck. Rescuers tried to comfort the horse and feed it grass.
''Toward the end, she was definitely in a lot of pain,'' Waggoner said. ``It was hard to watch her.''
If the horse had tried to get back into traffic, she would likely have been shot as a last resort, Brown said. ''This [horse] was still pretty dangerous,'' Brown said. ``The Highway Patrol officers have to think of public safety first.''
The horse's owner had yet to be located Sunday afternoon.
The state Department of Transportation will charge the owner with the cost of removing the dead horse, Brown said.
According to the ASPCA, about six horses a year in South Florida are killed after getting hit by automobiles.
''It's not that uncommon of an occurence,'' said Waggoner of the ASPCA.