The day Lucas almost killed himself...

Our first show of the year is tomorrow and we have 7 horses from the barn going (2 two horse trailers and one 4 horse that is taking 3 trying figuring that out!)  So I headed out to the barn around 7:30 this morning to get to the barn and get Lucas lunged and bathed before all of the kids showed up for lessons. 

I took him to the outside pen and got him lunged and bought him back in and let him finish breakfast while I waited for the hot water to heat up. So I got all of my bucket together and prepped the soap and scrub brushes.

So Lucas doesn't like bathes, and he likes bathes in the wash stall even less.  I had him in there on Thursday to clean his sheath and he was fine, and he was good today.  I got his mane all washed and rinsed and had him scrubbed all over (and even managed to scrub off the gook on the front of his hind cannon).  Then I started rinsing him off.  He pulled back on the tie once, but that's not unusual, he pulls until it goes tight then he stops, and steps ahead.  (And our wash bay is the only place that he does this, he ties well everywhere else).

Well today he decided to be a dink and really pull on it, he's done that once before when we had to soak his feet last year but stopped when we yelled at him, today he didn't. And when he didn't stop, and he sat back on the rope the worst possible thing that could have happened, happened.  Nope the rope didn't break, his halter didn't break,and he didn't slip on the mats.

The plywood and 2x4's that the tie ring and rope was attached to came loose from the main barn structure.

A whole sheet of plywood with several 2x4's attached to the back of it, was now attached to Lucas' halter.

It was one of those moments like when you fall off, or get in a car accident.  It takes like a second, but it feels like it took 18 minutes to happen.  I was next to him in the wash stall, C and a friends husband were behind us in the aisle way (about 10 feet away) talking to another friend who was grooming her horse in his stall (thank God she decided to wait until I was done washing before she put her horse in the cross ties behind Lucas).  And D had just gone out the front door to get bedding, leaving the front gate of the barn wide open, which was only about 2 stalls from the wash bay.

When I realized that the wood was coming off the wall I knew that if we didn't get out of his way he was going to hurt someone, and there was no way we were going to stop him without getting hurt ourselves until he decided to stop.  I still don't know how I avoided a full sheet of plywood waving around in a 11 foot wide wash stall but I did.  

It was like a train wreck all we could do was to yell at everyone to get out of the way, there was no way to stop Lucas because he was panicking (and I don't blame him one bit).  Once he backed himself out of the wash bay he backed himself out the front door, going as fast as he could possibly go.  My mind was thinking "OK that's it, if he gets out that door hes done, the road isn't that far away and with that wood swinging around hes going to either break a leg or if he runs onto the road there is nothing to stop him"

And then he stopped, the plywood got hung up between the door frame and the open gate and wedged hard enough that it managed to stop his backwards run.  However now he was outside, and we were inside with a stack of wood keeping him from us, but holding him in place. The friend in the stall managed to get her husband to safety, and me and C were trying to talk calmly to Lucas while another friend and her husband ran out another door to try and get around the barn to get to Lucas.  Thankfully D heard the rucks and came at a run from the storage shed to find Lucas stuck in in the door.  Also thankfully I always keep another lead on Lucas halter in the bath stall.  D was able to get close enough to Lucas to un-clip the rope holding him to the wood, and grab the extra lead attached to his halter.  Once he was free from the wood, I started crying, I just couldn't help it.

So I managed not to get hit, the friend in the stall was OK, C ran for her life and was OK,the friends husband was hit, (and we were worried for a bit that he might have broken something) but will be OK and will just have a good bruise to show for it. 

D took Lucas for a walk (and checked his legs and chest for any cuts bumps and scrapes) until we all calmed down a bit (and made sure the friends husband was ok) and then he brought him in by himself and took him into the wash stall and finished rinsing him off.  D let me come in once that was done and I scraped the extra water off.  I had managed to stop crying by that point once I knew everyone was ok.  And then Lucas got tied again in his stall to make sure that he knew how to be tied (and he was fine, he never even thought about trying to pull again)  I got him dried off and we took him out later for a walk and little trot around but he seems to be completely fine.

We did give him a dose of Bute, just as a precaution, and going to the show is defiantly going to depend on how he feels tomorrow (and only for showmanship). Today was one of those days when I wish we had a good horse vet around, just to check out his neck, but we can get the chiropractor up if hes not himself.