Syria the trapped horsey. Photos by Chris Beere.

A team of firefighters, vets, and a sheriff’s deputy used rope and some good old fashioned elbow grease to pull a trapped horse out from under a tree stump on Thursday.

Firefighters received a call around 4:30 p.m. that a horse was stuck in a hole near the intersection of Lentell and Mitchell Roads in Eureka. Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Bill Gillespie responded to the scene and told the Outpost that two engine crews, two veterinarians, and a Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office livestock deputy assisted in freeing the distressed animal.

“The horse had fallen into a hole, then ended up under part of a stump,” Gillespie said. “We assisted a veterinarian with pulling the horse free after it was sedated.”

Eureka resident Chris Beere told the Outpost this afternoon that the horse, which is one of four owned by his wife Cindy Conover, is a 22-year old Arabian named Syria.

“The horse was grazing in the little pasture at our kind neighbor’s house near a precipitously sloping hillside where they have pushed a lot of debris with bulldozers — she’s the adventurous alpha mare,” Beere said. “The dirt was so soft that while she was grazing it collapsed, and she fell almost completely beneath this stump and got caught while trying to get back up.”

Beere said that the Syria is healthy and back to her usual self after the hour-and-a-half rescue.

“She’s grazing with the other horses and doesn’t appear to have suffered anything from the mal-adventure,” Beere said. “She’s doing great!”