Sad news on BBC website - horses killed in Essex

[Surreydeb]

From BBC website:

Two horses have died and a man is seriously injured after three of the animals wandered on to a road in Essex.


Essex Police said the crash happened on the A127 in Wickford at 06:00 BST and involved four cars and a lorry.


Officers said a man in a Nissan Micra had to be cut free by the fire service and was taken to Basildon Hospital with a serious head injury.


The London-bound carriageway of the road has been shut while emergency services remain on scene.


Police said one horse died instantly and the second had to be put down by a vet. The third horse was unhurt.


Officers have called it a "distressing scene" and any witnesses who have been affected are recommended to seek counselling.


Poor horses and feel really sorry for the drivers involved.

 

[Hedgewitch13]

Oh that's sounds awful

 

[9tails]

Terrible tragedy, only about 10 miles from home too. RIP horses and I hope the driver makes a full recovery.

 

[cbmcts]

My OH was unlucky enough to be at the scene very shortly after the crash - it wasn't pretty and took a stupid amount of time to get a vet to the second horse due to the build up of traffic. Fortunately it was a Saturday as it was still dark at 6:15am and I think that the accident/casualty rate would have much worse if it had been a weekday.

The Micra driver has head injuries but as you can imagine is very lucky to be alive as he hit two horses and his car was absolutely wrecked, I think one of the horses went right over his car - not unexpected as it's a 70mph stretch of the road.

OH is a pretty stoic, not easily shaken type but even he was in a bit of shock when he rang me.

I really wish that people would fence their horses in better especially along side NSL roads, there are a lot of fields along both the A127 and A13 that seem to be mainly baling twine and pallet fences and it's not the first time that horses have been loose on that section of the A127. I caught 2 - a trotter type and heavily in foal coloured - there at 1am a few years ago in heavy fog. I still thank god for the 2 lorry drivers that blocked the road so I could catch them without been run over by a vehicle...it took hours for the police to arrange for them to be picked up by a local rescue.

 

[Rhandir]

according to the news a further horse has been killed not far from the original accident earlier this morning

 

[misterjinglejay]

That must have been horrific for your OH, cbmcts, and for anyone else involved. We're hearing this senario more and more - I assume it has to do with the huge numbers of fly grazed ponies??

 

[stencilface]

Just awful, poor drivers and poor horses - more so the one that had to wait for the vet.

 

[cbmcts]

I don't think that they're fly grazed as such - there is a quite a lot of legitimate grazing rather than yards IYSWIM in that area but the fencing is rubbish and the standards of care are poor. I imagine that with the hot weather the grass has gone off (mind you, the ragwort crop is top notch!) so the horses are starting to roam looking for food. These are not horses that get supplementary feeds or water tanks BTW, they have to make do with ponds for water and whatever they can find to eat. No doubt many of them will end up tethered for a while as the police will crack down after this...

None of the animal welfare charities, except one local small one seem able to do anything about it - it really is a problem in South Essex as there doesn't seem like there is anything in place to deal with them.

Another one Rhandir? It's really not on

 

[figgy]

So sad, another horse was hit last night about 8pm and badly injured on the same road. Women was hurt this time. Hope all involved make a full recovery.