A 27-year-old horse was airlifted by helicopter after it fell down a hill on a farm near Palmerston North, New Zealand, Tuesday night (Oct. 31).

Massey University veterinarians and the Fire Service were called to the Harrison Hill Road farm after the owners discovered the horse, named Amagh, had slipped or fallen several meters into a ravine containing gorse (a type of spiny shrub).

Owner Sue Leathwick says Amagh was trapped on his back and completely exhausted when they found him this morning. “We couldn’t move him and we thought he may have broken something so we called the Massey vets and the Fire Service,” Leathwick said.

Dr. Kirstie Dacre, a senior lecturer in equine medicine at the Institute of Veterinary Animal and Biomedical Sciences at Massey University, says if Amagh had not been caught up in the gorse he could have tumbled or slipped a lot further.

“Being on its back is not a good position for a horse to be in,” Dacre says. “We checked for broken bones but he didn’t appear to have any. Amagh was dehydrated so we sedated him and administered fluids into the vein as well as painkillers.”

Massey has a special large animal lift sling designed at the University of California, Davis, which was attached to Amagh and using a four-wheel drive and a rope the rescuers were able to get the horse into a sitting position.

Leathwick says by then Amagh was completely exhausted and was obviously not going to be able to get to his feet, so a helicopter was called in to airlift him back up the hill and onto his feet.

“He’s coped with the ordeal amazingly well, given his age and the position he fell into,” Leathwick said