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If you think your day got off to a bad start, spare a thought for the horse found with its head stuck in a bridge near Lytton in B.C.’s Interior this week.
Local truck driver Brian Hart had started his Tuesday morning shift and was driving along a seldom-used gravel road on his way into town when he happened upon the startling scene.
“I’m heading down this one hill to my first bridge,” he told CBC’s Radio West.
“And I see this horse lying in the middle of the bridge.”
Hart said hoof marks on the bridge and the horse’s positioning led him to believe it had slipped on its way down the hill.
“It looks like it hit the concrete on the bridge, lost its footing and somehow got its head jammed under the timber,” he said.
At first, Hart thought it might have been dead.
“I looked over the edge [of the bridge] and that thing looked up at me, tongue hanging out, just exhausted.
“And it just gave me a look of, get me the hell out of here!”
Hart tried pulling the horse’s mane to free it, but said it became agitated and started kicking.
He was midway through attempting to tear off the bridge’s beam with his truck’s crane attachment, when the horse finally managed to free itself.
“It couldn’t even hold his head up. It just stood there for like ten minutes looking at me,” he said.
The truck driver who found the horse did not know how long it had been trapped. (Brian Hart)
“Finally it caught its breath, and just walked away.”
Hart described it as the strangest encounter of his life.
“I told the boss, this was not in my job description. They didn’t train me for this.”