Horse Trailer Crash in Ohio: Everyone's Worst Nightmare


So, how was your weekend? If you're disappointed because the weather wasn't the greatest, or your show didn't go so well, or you didn't get all the work done around the barn that you had planned, brighten up. Some people in the horse world had a very tough time this weekend.

This news report from an Ohio television station is just a few seconds of a long, frightening and tragic afternoon along I-71 near Lebanon, Ohio today. All it took was a blown tire, or possibly two, and five people were on their way to different hospitals, and two horses and a dog were trapped inside a gooseneck trailer with rear-entry doors firmly planted in the earth.

How lucky that Lebanon Equine Clinic just happened to be nearby.

You can also see a slide show of images from the wreck.

It's important to see scenes like these once in a while, and remember them every time you decide to get behind the wheel and pull a horse trailer. I took a count recently, and four out of five of the last truck-and-trailer rigs I passed on the very busy I-95 near here were being driven in the middle lane by someone who had one hand on the wheel and one hand on a cell phone and no one in the passenger seat to help keep an eye on traffic. Hopefully they all reached their destinations safely.

What the television report fails to say in plain English is that the wreck apparently happened in the median strip of the highway, meaning that the careening truck and trailer must have crossed one or possibly two lanes of traffic to its left as it went out of control.

And the nice lady coming along behind towing an empty trailer? That's what you call an angel.

Thanks to WCPO/Channel 9 Cincinnati for providing the video footage.

by Fran Jurga | 24 May 2010 | The Jurga Report at Equisearch.comFollow @FranJurga on for horse health news!