CHERRY VALLEY - A firefighter who was to be honored for 50 years of service to the volunteer fire department didn’t miss a horse rescue call about three and half hours before the celebration, said Wayne Township Fire Chief Jeff Thompson.
John Semai, who joined the department in 1960, answered the bell with five other Wayne Township firefighters at 12:35 p.m. Saturday and helped get a horse from a chilly pond on Loveland Road about a mile south of Route 6.
“We had a horse that fell in a pond in Cherry Valley. The horse was up to almost its head in the water,” Thompson said. He said the incident occurred at a vineyard, adjacent to the horse owner’s property, after the horse snuck through a hole in a fence.
Thompson said the horse owner’s last name is Johnston, but he didn’t have the first name available.
He said the horse is 18 years old and was suffering from extreme hypothermia but was alive Saturday afternoon.
After trying to winch the horse out firefighters put their new eight wheel rescue vehicle into action. “We strapped it (the horse) into its halter and (strapped) its butt,” Thompson said. He said a firefighter then went into the water and placed another strap around its chest.
“We slid him sideways,” Thompson said. He said it took the horse about eight minutes to get up.
The horse had a friend on the journey as a pony stayed with the older horse throughout the ordeal, Thompson said. He said a firefighter tried to move the pony, but it was having none of that and waited until the horse was safely out of the water.
Thompson said two of his fire cadets put their 4-H training to good use helping to dry the horse off after the ordeal.
The firefighters were able to get back to the fire hall in time for the 4 p.m. celebration of Semai’s 50 years of service to the fire department.
“It was our first official rescue (with the amphibious vehicle) and it ended up being a horse,” Thompson said with a laugh.
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