On Thursday, April 6, 2006 at 9:16 a.m., two companies of Los Angeles firefighters, one heavy rescue, one urban search and rescue unit and one battalion chief officer command team, under the direction of Battalion Chief Michael Bowman responded to a request for animal assistance at 9701 Wheatland Avenue in Sunland.

Firefighters were summoned by a neighbor who heard some manner of commotion the previous night. This morning, the woman, who resides in a nearby guest house in the largely equestrian neighborhood, learned of a horse stranded near the bottom of a neighbors almost empty swimming pool.

She subsequently notified fire officials via 9-1-1 when Department of Animal Services personnel were not immediately available to respond.

Neighborhood firefighters discovered the unnamed and somewhat skittish one year-old equine to have only minor injuries.

Because the young horse, unaccustomed to being led, would not readily walk up a narrow and somewhat flexible metal ramp placed in the pool's shallow end by neighbors, a cadre of firefighters began to swiftly construct a sturdier ramp with lumber.

As the ramp took shape, other firefighters sought to comfort and reassure the horse, gaining its trust and keeping it from the brackish water at the pool's deep end.

Finding they had closely bonded with the animal, and prior to bringing the large wooden contrivance into the nearly dry pool, firefighters elected to use hay to entice the now calmer gray colt up the steel ramp, which they had fortified with scrap lumber.

Their effort proved successful, and the animal was transferred calmly to the care of Department of Animal Services staff, including a veterinarian who assured firefighters that the horse would survive his ordeal.