COROLLA, N.C. -- A wild horse in the Outer Banks who got tangled in a wire Friday later died of heat stroke, according to officials with the Corolla Wild Horse Fund group.
The post said a Dominion Power employee called the wild horse fund after spotting the tangled horse. They said it was stuck in wire that was put up as fencing.
Staff arrived on-scene and said they were able to free the horse, named Hurricane, from the wire. The post said, "He stood up and after a minute or two walked off and was relatively sound. The wound on his leg didn't look too bad and we were relieved that it seemed like Hurricane had avoided any serious damage from the incident."
Hurricane ended up falling over and staff said he was in distress, eventually going into organ failure so he had to be humanely euthanized.
Their vet determined that Hurricane had gone into heat stroke from struggling and stressing after being caught in the wire for at least several hours.
The Corolla Wild Horse Fund added in a plea to residents in the area saying, "Property owners, please take this preventable death as an opportunity to look around your yard and clean up anything that could be a danger for the horses. Any kind of wire is an extreme danger to the horses, and not suitable fencing material. Pallets, sand fencing that's falling down, loose ropes, barriers and gates that are in poor repair, rusted and broken car and boat parts, etc, etc. are all hazardous to the horses' safety."
