'Chance' gets a second one after crash
For an animal who survived a crash that killed 19 other Belgian draft horses, "Chance" seemed like a fitting name.
"In a strange way, the accident gave him a second chance at life," said Jane Karasick of Wayne, who adopted and named the horse after the crash.
The way Karasick sees it, the accident was actually a stroke of luck for the 40 surviving horses, since they'd reportedly been heading to a slaughterhouse when the crash occurred.
It happened Oct. 27 when an overcrowded double-decker trailer carrying the horses collided with a car in Wadsworth.
The horses that survived "were just in very, very poor shape," said Beth Kennedy, an equestrian enthusiast from Countryside who adopted two of them. "But at least they were alive."
Those horses, including Chance and Kennedy's horses named Thelma and Louise, have all been adopted by loving owners, said Donna Ewing, president of Hooved Animal Rescue and Protection Society, the Barrington Hills group that took in the horses after the crash and cared for them until they were well enough for adoption.
Chance thrived so much under Karasick's care that he's actually outgrown her pastures. So last week, Karasick had to bring him back to the society. At about 2,100 pounds, he'd begun leaning on his stall doors. Karasick worried he'd bring the whole barn down, and that at only 2 years old, he needed bigger fields in which to run, play and grow.
"I really like this horse, I love him, but I just can't give him what he needs," she said.
Karasick and Ewing hope to find a new, large home for Chance soon. And they should have no trouble placing him. They both said the show of support after the accident was overwhelming.
Chance wasn't badly injured, but others required complicated treatment.
When Stephanie Larson of Woodstock adopted one of the horses, she similarly named her "Second Chance." Her horse had metal bars through her right front knee after the accident and needed surgery. Larson said she spent about an hour a day cleaning and bandaging her horse's wounds following the surgery.
"It's rewarding to see that we could save her leg. They thought they were going to have to euthanize her," Larson said. "It will take years to heal completely, but you can't tell when she moves around or when she runs that she ever had a problem."
The horse Denise Zak of West Dundee adopted also went through a long recovery. When "Little One" came into Zak's care, the horse had an eye injury and cuts on her legs, could not stand up straight and was rowdier than the other horses. Zak, an animal intuitive who says she can communicate with animals, said Little One is more trusting and loving now and close to being back to normal.
"She's gained a ton of weight, she's growing like a maniac and she's standing better," Zak said. The horse now has partial vision in the injured eye.
Transporting horses to the slaughterhouse for human consumption is illegal, Ewing said, but a loophole in the law makes it possible to transport them to sale barns, where slaughterhouse owners can pick up the horses. Once horses are injured, though, they are prohibited from being transported until they are checked by health care professionals - no matter where they're going.
"It would have been totally inhumane and cruel to transport horses like that without veterinarian care," Ewing said.
While the animals recovered at a nearby Wadsworth farm after the crash, the Great West Casualty Insurance Co. paid for two weeks of food and medical bills, including the costs of treating the contagious respiratory virus called strangles that many of the horses had contracted.
After two weeks, the insurance company offered to give Ewing the horses or get rid of the animals themselves.
"These horses were not going to be killed after all they had been through," Ewing said.
Donations and Hooved Animal Rescue and Protection Society emergency funds paid the $20,000 for the remainder of the food and medical bills for the horses, which were all adopted by June.
The owner of the horses at the time of the crash, Keith Tongen of Brownton, Minn., faces misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty and failure to provide humane care. Tongen, who is out on bond and due in Lake County court Friday, could not be reached for comment.
The driver of the truck, James Anderson of McLeod, N.D., faces similar charges and has yet to turn himself in.
• Daily Herald staff Writer Tony Gordon contributed to this report.
<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="/multimedia/?category=9&type=video&item=193">At home (for now) in Barrington Hills </a></li> </ul> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href=/story/?id=77822">Greener pastures for horses involved in accident <span class="date">[11/15/07]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=77249">Horses which survived Lake Co. semi crash adopted <span class="date">[11/14/07]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=66807">3 more horses claimed by crash <span class="date">[10/30/07]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=66263">59 horses hurt or killed in 'horrific' Lake Co. crash <span class="date">[10/29/07]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=66005">Horses killed in crash <span class="date">[10/28/07]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>