Fires are always scary. Their unpredictability and the sheer heat they can give off can make anybody freeze up and panic. This is especially true for animals. Sometimes, an animal will have no idea what to do during a fire, and so they’ll simply stay still.
That was the case for a horse named Phoebe at Red Wing Farm in Pennsylvania. When her barn caught on fire, the scared horse could do nothing but stand and watch it happen. Thankfully, though, two police officers named Matthew Reiss and Kristian Hanus came to save the day.
These police officers refused to leave without Phoebe.
Running onto the scene they asked if anyone was still inside, the barn ablaze in front of them. One woman at the scene shouted to the officers that there was no one inside, except a terrified horse frozen in place with fear.
“Up until then, it was just a normal day. We were doing paperwork when we got the call for a barn fire on Hilltown Pike,” Reiss told the Bucks County Courier Times.
Without hesitation, the officers Reiss and Hanus ran into the barn to see what they could do about the situation.
Though there were no people inside, a life is a life and they were going to save that horse. When they saw the situation inside the barn they knew this was going to take a lot of teamwork to get the animal to safety.
The two officers started yelling at the horse to get it to move and were joined by a fearless farmhand still in the barn.
With sheer manpower, rope, and a lot of hope, the two officers were able to get the horse to safety outside of the burning barn.
“I didn’t know how to put that thing on a horse, and there was no time,” Reiss told the Courier Times. “I don’t know how I did it… just got behind it and tried moving her in the right direction.”
The video is a blur of people, fire, and yelling, but towards the end we see the horse run out of its stall in the burning barn.
Not far behind are the officers running up the hill and out of the way of the flames, both amazed at what they just accomplished.
“When you arrive, you do a thousand assessments — what do we have, what do we need, how do you get things under control,” Reiss said.
No one suffered any serious injuries.
Reiss and Hanus had very minor injuries and eight people on the farm needed medical attention, but overall the only devastation was the barn, which unfortunately couldn’t be saved or salvaged.
Barn fires can be devastating, but thankfully in this case the only thing lost was a building. Every life was saved, and it was all thanks to a few brave people.
Check out a video of the cops rescuing Phoebe below!
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