By When a dozen people of Grantsburg Village, Wisconsin, heard word that a horse was wandering in nearby Big Wood Lake, they decided to find it and make sure everything was OK. It wasn’t.
Instead, they found was a reminder of how a community can work together to make a difference.Â
The community group on Facebook shared some incredible photos. In the comments on the post, the group also shared the dramatic video.Â
As they approached the lake, they heard the sound of a horse struggling in the water. A mustang had fallen through the ice after a tree had broken his pen and allowed him out.Â
Local news said, “Ryan said he spent some time trying to locate the horse, but was unable to find the animal until Sunday, when he heard that a horse had fallen through the ice at Big Wood Lake.
“We were able to see him bobbing and struggling,” Ryan told WCCO-TV. “It was just calling a bunch of mutual friends and horse people around the area and I knew someone was going to know someone who had a warm safe place we could house if it was successful.”
More than a dozen people combined their efforts to get the horse out of the frigid water. The team put a flotation device under the horse’s belly and rigged a rope and pulley system to get the horse back up onto the ice.
“He did a thrash kick toward the end when we thought he was near giving up, and got himself kind of halfway up,” Ryan told KMSP-TV. “We yelled ‘1-2-3! We need to go’ and that’s when we got him on the ice. We kept him down at first, because if he stood up potentially all three of us were going in the water with him.”
“D.J. Ryan, 38, who was one of a dozen people who were on the ice to help the horse, told ABC News he saw a Facebook post Saturday night from a neighbor about a horse that was seen wandering the road, so he and another neighbor went out to investigate.”
“Residents and other neighbors told ABC News they were relieved that the horse, who they dubbed Jack after the “Titanic” character, was able to get up and stand after it spent three hours in the water in Wood Lake, Wisconsin on Sunday.
Mike Strub, the president of the Big Wood Lake Association, and resident of the lake who was on the scene during the rescue, told ABC News that despite the subzero temperatures and limited resources, his neighbors never gave up until they could get Jack to safety.
“This doesn’t surprise me. That is the kind of neighborhood and community that would do something like that,” he told ABC News.”
Unlike Titanic this Jack had a happy ending. The good folks at Big Wood Lake confirmed that he was reunited with his owner on Sunday.Â
