Two Romanians were seriously injured by horses in less than 24 hours in two separate incidents that took place in Sibiu County.
A pregnant young woman, 21 years old, was taken in very serious condition to the Intensive Care Unit of Sibiu County Hospital after being dragged by a horse for a distance of 300 meters in the Hamba locality. The woman was found unconscious by the SMURD crew. It happened on Tuesday evening.
On Wednesday at noon, a 58-year-old man was transported in a coma to the Emergency Department in Târgu Mureș after being dragged by a horse in the Benești locality (Sibiu County) for a distance of ten meters. According to the police, the cart driver fell from the cart and was dragged by the horse, getting caught in the reins after hitting a pole with the cart.
Horses are extremely sensitive animals
One of the most valuable equestrians and horse riding trainers in Romania, 37-year-old sports master Ionel Bucur, recommends to all riders or cart drivers to be careful with their horses, as these animals are very sensitive and can easily get scared, as evidenced by the two accidents in the last 24 hours.
"First and foremost, it is negligence and inattention. (…) To avoid it, you have to think ahead that it can happen. Our horses are trained daily," said trainer Ionel Bucur from the Sibiu Municipal Sports Club.
Horses are extremely sensitive animals and react quickly to noises, cars, animals, or unexpected movements around them.
"This is characteristic of a horse: it is very sensitive and gets scared. That's why, in the wild, it weighs 500-600 kilograms, so for it, a wolf or another animal should be an insignificant problem in terms of its strength, meaning it can jump on it, hit it, do anything, but because it is a very sensitive animal, it prefers, and is naturally equipped with running abilities, it prefers to run away.
And that's why, anything around it that is not natural scares it. And our trained horses are always attentive to movements around them, to a cat, a sparrow, a pigeon, a dog, and because they are trained, we do not have such problems."
When a horse gets scared, it is about a panic of that particular horse," explained Ionel Bucur.
The natural instinct of the horse is to flee
He emphasized that the natural instinct of the horse is to flee, even though the animal has impressive strength.
"You can't hold a small foal, let alone a horse weighing 600 kilograms. Considering the muscle structure of a horse, if it gains a bit of speed, you can't hold it," he pointed out.
The Sibiu trainer, who has been working with horses for almost 50 years, believes that animals are not aggressive by nature and that responsibility for such accidents lies with humans.
"No horse is bad or spoiled, it is humans who spoil them. The horse was put in a situation where it got scared," said Ionel Bucur.
He also mentioned that equine-assisted therapy is used even for children with disabilities, precisely because of the gentle behavior of the animals.
"The advice is to be cautious. The horse is not a bad animal, it is not an animal that wants to cause accidents, it is just the carelessness of people around," Ionel Bucur concluded.
He admitted that he has been stepped on by horses throughout his career, but never to a serious extent.
"In general, the horse does not step on people. In my career, I had horses that stepped on my stomach, but they also step and lift their leg on their own, meaning they do not complete the movement, because they feel and protect you, but when horses are maximally scared, they cannot protect themselves, let alone protect others," said Ionel Bucur.