Event rider Peter Green saves facility and 16 horses

[Bellfleur]

On January 12th event rider Peter Green saved my entire barn / indoor complex from burning to the ground. Peter Green's selfless bravery and quick thinking (along with that of my farrier - Levi) prevented the possible deaths of 16 horses and my entire life going up in flames!!! At the expense of his F350 dually I might add. Talk about knowing how to think under pressure!

It was 2pm and I was in the house changing while my farrier (Levi) and my farm manager (Julie) were up at the barn. She had just returned to the barn after dumping the last of the stall cleanings in the manure pile. She parked our Polaris Ranger (yes turned it off!)about two feet from the barn and went inside to get a horse ready to show to a potential buyer.

Peter Green had been driving by my farm and he turned around and came flying up my driveway. He had seen from the road what no one else had noticed a huge cloud of black smoke. AND had cared enough to come to help!! How many people would have just kept on driving thinking we had everything under control!

Our Polaris had somehow caught on fire and was entirely engulfed in flames about 25 feet high (sitting about 2 feet from the barn) and had started to catch the barn on fire. He drove up behind the ranger and pushed it out of the way with his truck to a safe 15 feet from the barn while the thing was still burning with flames 20 feet in the air!!!

He then ran inside and grabbed a fire extinguisher, sprinted upstairs to the loft and calmly put out the fire that was already burning in the rafters. All the time kept everyone here calm enough to deal with the situation intelligently.

After that was done and we could hear fire trucks on the way we went outside while the roof was still smoldering and there is his truck with flames now under the hood. His using his truck to push the flaming ranger out of the way had caught his truck on fire!!! His truck ended up with the entire thing turning into slag also.

I was pretty useless (unless you count crying hysterically the whole time!)except for trying to move horses out of the barn. Levi had to move several of the horses including one esp. fractious recently gelded BIG guy out of the stalls. Plus running buckets of water and putting out flames on the side of the barn. Julie was the only one to coax one of the FEI ponies out of her burning stall.

The potential buyer of the horse directed fire companies up the drive and caught one horse that had gotten loose. When everything was over with all the horses and people were safe, all fires out, everything done except the cleanup she said Oh having a Fire Sale today?

Thank God for Peter Green and Levi!!

OK so now we have the fire department coming in for training on how to use fire extinguishers. Plus NO parking of any vehicles near the barn.

A word of caution to everyone. Know how to use those things that the insurance company makes us have (prior to this I thought they were pretty useless since I never needed one before!) I know how stupid can I be right! We are going out today to replace the used ones and buy additional ones. The only reason I had them here was that my insurance company said I needed them. Thank God for so many things working in our favor and esp for Peter Green.

I guess we now get to see how that good that insurance through USEF is!!

Forever thank you Peter and Levi!!!

[Badger]

WOW.

What a frightening experience that could have been so much worse. I cannot begin to imagine how grateful you feel to Peter. What a proactive, cool head in an emergency. You are so lucky he was driving by, observant, and saved so much more than "the day." Sounds like everyone rallied together to minimize what could have quickly been a tragic situation.

Good point on the car parking and the fire extinguishers....We put one in the barn over 16 years ago when we moved in and haven't touched in since. It probably needs testing if not replacing.

I'm sorry for the damage to the vehicles and facility, but so glad it wasn't worse.

Hope Peter gets a fab new truck for his good deed!

[Josey'sMom]

WOW! How amazing that he not only saw what was happening but stepped in to save your barn and keep everyone else from panicing. Talk about a hero. Hope your insurance pays for a nice new truck for him, I would have been terrified to push a burning vehicle with my truck! I'm so glad none of the horses were hurt and hope you didn't take too much damage to your barn. LOL at the potential buyer's comment. Did she end up buying the horse?

[Jealoushe]

GO Peter!!

[War Admiral]

So sorry for you losing your barn, but how VERY much worse it could have been without the intervention of Mr. Green, the prospective purchaser, and lots of other people, it sounds like!

Really AWESOME of you, Peter Green. You rock. Huge thumbs up.

[Auburn]

Peter is a hero. :yes:

If you ask your local fire departments to come and have "drill night" at your farm, you can teach them how to handle horses and they can teach you what kind of fire extinguishers to have and how to use them.

My DH is a Volunteer Firefighter. The fire dept. is always looking for new, fun drills for the firefighters. Plus, they get to know the layout of your farm, which is extremely important if you should ever have a fire.

[Cathbad]

What a happy ending to a potential tragedy! What a thrill to hear that it turned out basically all right, with no fatalities or real injury:yes:

The story bolstered my often flagging belief in humankind

Hey, run an ad in the Chronicle to thank Peter! He'll be embarrassed, but this kind of action, well, I think it ranks higher than winning Rolex or an Olympic medal.

[snoopy]

Ah Peter, there are times when you want to smack the $hit out of him but it is times like this when you see the heart that drives the man.

Hoping you can get back to normal as soon as possible. Happy ending to what could have easily been something so tragic.

[Jealoushe]

Ah Peter, there are times when you want to smack the $hit out of him but it is times like this when you see the heart that drives the man.

Hoping you can get back to normal as soon as possible. Happy ending to what could have easily been something so tragic.

Oh my god - you are funny :lol:

[fooler]

Great job done by Peter - pity he lost his truck. Let's hope the insurance company does the right thing for him.

Good thing to check your fire extinguishers at least annualy. We put them in both our barns when we moved in 10 years ago. Tried to use one when our tractor/lawn mower caught fire about 4 years ago and it was out. Fortunately the machine was in a open spot away from buildings and the grass was still damp. We now monitor the fire extinguishers & re-charge/replace as needed.

FYI - the machine 'caught fire' due to grass and such getting stuck around the motor. Watch for that as you are driving about.

Glad the living things survived - the buildings and vehicles can be replaced.

[2016 RoyalCrown KTug]

[QUOTE=Josey'sMom;3803093]WOW! How amazing that he not only saw what was happening but stepped in to save your barn and keep everyone else from panicing. Talk about a hero. Hope your insurance pays for a nice new truck for him, I would have been terrified to push a burning vehicle with my truck! I'm so glad none of the horses were hurt and hope you didn't take too much damage to your barn. QUOTE]

:yes::yes::yes:

[shade]

What a happy ending to a potential tragedy! What a thrill to hear that it turned out basically all right, with no fatalities or real injury:yes:

The story bolstered my often flagging belief in humankind

Hey, run an ad in the Chronicle to thank Peter! He'll be embarrassed, but this kind of action, well, I think it ranks higher than winning Rolex or an Olympic medal.


Most deffinately run an ad.

What an amazing story, thank you for sharing it.

[frugalannie]

Thank you for sharing your story. Kudos to Peter Green and to everyone who pitched in at your barn. I'm so glad that the damage wasn't worse!

My neighbor is a fireman, and mentioned to me that there are services that will come around and test/ recharge your fire extinguishers (contact your local FD for info). It should be done ANNUALLY!

And in case you haven't heard me rant about this before, invite your local fire department to your farm. Show them around and ask them to identify potential hazards. If you don't live in a rural area (assuming that firemen in rural areas have some knowledge of livestock), offer to have them do a training session at your barn where they learn just a little about horses and understand how they may behave when confronted with a fireman in full regalia, sounding like Darth Vader with the respirator on.

The Connecticut Horse Council has developed terrific materials about preventing and fighting barn fires. I'm sure they would share them if they were asked.

[annikak]

WOW! Great story!

[RunForIt]

This story is calling you and the USEA Eventing Blog . :D :cool:

[eventer4ever]

AMAZING!

Truly some heroes in that story!

[Zephyr]

Wow... go Peter!!! I lived/worked on a farm where he was for a while, and I can totally picture him pushing the burning Ranger with his truck... that is something only he would think of... nicely done!!

[ezmissg]

WOW! What a STORY! Thank God it ended so well.

Another suggestion -- as opposed to paying for an ad, you might reach out to a reporter at a magazine (e.g., COTH, Practical Horseman, Equus). Offer them the story; suggest they take pictures; suggest they feature/interview/photograph Peter Green, but also use it to launch an informative article, let them report on bringing in your fire department to review your facility for safety, training them to handle horses, etc.

In other words, the story has legs...see how many directions it can be taken.

So glad to hear everyone is OK.

[asterix]

I second ezmissg's idea -- you'd do a LOT of good with an article like that and rather than being a nagging "good horsepeople ought to..." it would be very compelling with photos of your place and hopefully photos of the FD out there doing some training.
mythical84 can probably hook you up with someone at Practical Horseman if you want to pm her...

[Bensmom]

Ah Peter, there are times when you want to smack the $hit out of him but it is times like this when you see the heart that drives the man.
Hoping you can get back to normal as soon as possible. Happy ending to what could have easily been something so tragic.

:lol::lol: Well said! You know, a story about his heroism like this could totally ruin Peter's reputation. ;) :lol: He really is a wonderful person and what a great demonstration of just how selfless he can be.

So glad that both he and your farrier were so quick to jump in and help and this was a great reminder of why I ought NOT to park the 4 wheeler in the barn in an extra stall.

[PhoenixFarm]

It wasn't nearly so dramatic but Peter once saved my bacon also, LOL.

Picture it: January 1996, and two little 20 something girls who had lived their entire life in California and had never seen snow except on TV are living in a rural house on a farm in Northern Virginia. They keep hearing reports on the TV about people rushing the stores to purchase copious amounts of food and supplies in advance of an approaching weather front. Thanks to alarmist TV news reports they manage to procure enough food to survive being snowed in for 9 days, but because they are winter virgins they are otherwise totally unprepared for the experience.

Including the answer to the question "Why is everybody parking their car at the end of the driveway?" We cleverly parked ours in their normal spot, a good half mile from the road.

Long story short, after many humorous anecdotes, including us nearly burning the house down trying to keep warm using old pressure treated fence boards in the woods stove, the lab eating a pound of M&Ms and us having to call doggie poison control, and sleeping with the chain saw to keep it warm so we could use it to cut up an old tree, the weather cleared the plows came . . . and we had half a mile of digging between the plowed road and our completely buried cars.

We didn't even have a proper snow shovel--we were using the forks from the barn. We dug and flailed for 5 hours until we nearly had a heart attack and we cleared about 10 feet. We cried, we despaired, and then low and behold upon the horizon we saw . . . Peter. On his tractor. With a bucket and a snow blade.

He cleared our driveway, our front yard, and all around the barn. He then helped us dig out the cars by hand. Then he rode away--a noble knight on his green John Deere. :winkgrin:

Of course, Peter being Peter, he was later heard to comment to my roomies boyfriend "I haven't been that close to getting laid by two girls half my age in 20 years." :lol::winkgrin::lol::winkgrin::lol::winkgrin:

But as is mentioned here, he truly does have a heart of gold--he just doesn't shine it around much.

[snoopy]

Of course, Peter being Peter, he was later heard to comment to my roomies boyfriend "I haven't been that close to getting laid by two girls half my age in 20 years." :lol::winkgrin::lol::winkgrin::lol::winkgrin:

But as is mentioned here, he truly does have a heart of gold--he just doesn't shine it around much.



...I can so hear Peter saying something like that!!!:lol:

[mjrtango93]

http://useventing.com/blog/?p=1896 Just in case anybody was interested.

[Oakstable]

OP, put your story in another forum where non eventers will see it.

What a great story!

[deltawave]

Hooray for Peter! What a hero. :)

The exhaust system/muffler on ATVs are SCORCHING hot, and not all of them are shielded like they ought to be. I almost lit myself on fire this fall carelessly getting too close to the muffler on our Honda while hooking up the harrow.

It doesn't get within 30 feet of the barn when it's hot, and this is a good reminder. And for me, it's a reminder to check the fire extinguishers. :yes:

[SaddleFitterVA]

I thought about this a few weeks ago, did the insurance company/farm owner get Peter set up with a replacement truck with little disruption to his own livelihood? Insurance companies and blue-book value often undervalue all the things that we do to our trucks to make them useful (hitches, brake controllers, steps, etc).

After saving that fabulous facility, I hope so!

[Coeur*de*Cheval]

OP, put your story in another forum where non eventers will see it.

What a great story!

good idea!

[gottagrey]

Amazing story. talk about being in the right place at the right time! Truly an act of selflessness - I don't' know how you could even put into words to thank him. It also gives us all pause to think - hmm if we ever see something amiss during our daily travels take the time to check it out...

[1516]

Somebody send this story to CNN. THIS is the kind of news we need to hear. Peter, we need more people in the world like you. :)

[wolfmare]

Reading this is was so hauntingly familiar...was I having a déjà vu moment? Was I becoming psychic instead of just psychotic? Oh yes, a year old post....explains so much....still just psychotic.

[DiablosHalo]

Reading this is was so hauntingly familiar...was I having a déjà vu moment? Was I becoming psychic instead of just psychotic? Oh yes, a year old post....explains so much....still just psychotic.

LOL! I thought it was just me! ;)

[RiverBendPol]

LOL! I thought it was just me! ;)

Hahaha, I guess our memories aren't really as bad as we think! I read the OP today and thought, OMG, how could Peter be out saving ANOTHER barn!??