This is the moment a horse called ELVIS got all shook up when he got trapped up to his nose – in a muddy SWAMP.
Ten firefighters spent three hours hauling the terrified three-year-old Welsh cob out of the bog by hand.
They attached ropes around trees to create a make-shift winch to shift the huge 14-hand stallion from the mud.
Owner Margaret Hill, 59, raised the alarm after he went missing from his field on Hillfields Farm, Allesley, near Coventry, on Wednesday morning.
She heard Elvis ”whinnying” and followed his cries to woods where she found him submerged in a 20-metre square mud pit.
Grandmother-of-two Margaret said: ”I went to check on the horses like I do, but as I went up the field he wasn’t there.
”He’s normally the first one to come out to me. I searched the field and I couldn’t find him – I thought he had been stolen.
”Then I noticed one of the horses whinnying. If it wasn’t for that, I’m sure we wouldn’t have found him.
”The lad who was with me saw him first; he literally dropped to his knees. When I saw him I wanted to cry – his nose just kept going under.
”He called out to us – he was so calm though, he was brilliant. I phoned my friend immediately, who called 999.”
James Halton, a member of the Midlands Fire Service Specialist Technical Rescue Team, jumped into the swamp where he comforted Elvis.
He shovelled away enough mud from around the horse to fit straps underneath his stomach and around his front legs.
The rescuers then spent three painstaking hours winching Elvis out of the mud inch by inch by hand.
Vij Randeniya, Chief Fire Officer, said: ”It was a difficult operation but we used teamwork to pull the horse out to safety without injuring or distressing him further.
”I always say that my firefighters are among the very best in the world and once again they have proved themselves.
”People think we just put out fires and respond to road accidents, but this incident has helped to show that we do much more.”
