Extraction of horse from canyon is a first for CAL FIRE chief; injury occurred during Tevis Cup

Matt Furtado of CAL FIRE NEU Nevada, Yuba and Placer said while it's not uncommon to facilitate the rescue of a person falling while in the American River Canyon, it was the first time he has been involved with a horse rescue. "The horse was a little bit of an anomaly," Furtado said. "But they were able to make that work and secure him well enough for the team to be able to secure the horse prior to the waist and lift him out." Foresthill Fire Protection District Interim Fire Chief Jed Matcham said his crew received a call around 2 a.m. Sunday, stating a horse and rider competing in the Tevis Cup were in need of assistance following a fall near Foresthill. "When the call first came in, there was a little bit of confusion," Matcham said during a news conference Tuesday. "They directed us to go in through a different route and then there were corrections on that almost immediately. … They were able to identify where the victim was within a close proximity. And then by the time we got down there, they had an exact location, which made it very easy." The units cleared the scene to extract the rider while Tevis staff attended to the injured horse. Matcham said while the location was difficult for crews to get to, neither the rider nor horse were in danger. A few hours after the rider was airlifted to safety, crews prepared to lift the horse. "I went down and I met with the team and found out that they had people that were down there working on trying to figure out how to get the horse out," Matcham said. "We were coordinating getting the Butte County Sheriff's helicopter to come and they were able to hoist it up. So there was a lot of coordinating all of that along with the technical rescue team, UC Davis, and the Nevada County Large Animal Rescue." Matcham credited the recovery to the communication between the technical rescue team and himself, allowing the horse and rider to be removed safely. "It was very successful because of the coordinated efforts between Foresthill Fire, CAL FIRE, the Placer County Technical Rescue Team and Nevada County, who consolidated with their animal rescue team. Those efforts certainly played into this positive outcome," Furtado said. "With the personnel that were down there assisting the animal, that was the easier side of things." The rider, who was not identified, was taken to a hospital and released several hours later. As of Tuesday, the horse was doing well and recovering in a pasture at UC Davis.