The owner of a horse killed in a collision with a vehicle on Highway 27 that sent two people from Innisfail to hospital doesn't know how the animal was able to reach the roadway.
Daniel Zimmerman, 25, splits his time between Olds and Didsbury and keeps horses at his grandparents' farm on Highway 27 just west of 70 Avenue.
Just after 9 p.m. on Aug. 15, he was returning from haying near Bowden and noticed three of the family's horses were along the side of the road a few hundred metres west of the farm's driveway.
“I started running down the road,” he said. “I had a blinky light in my hand and I started waving my hands and running down the road.”
The horses ran from him and one of the animals, a six-year-old female quarter horse named Cherry, veered onto the roadway into the path of an eastbound Honda Accord, Daniel said.
“I don't know how she (the driver) didn't see it,” he said. “It wasn't totally black. I could see the horses no problem.”
The collision killed Cherry instantly, Daniel said, and while the driver of the car, an 83-year-old woman, was able to get out of the car, her 48-year-old son had received multiple cuts when the vehicle's windshield was damaged and he remained in the car.
“I kind of ran up to the car and made sure everybody was OK,” Daniel said, adding he told a nurse who had pulled up to the scene to call 911 and he gave his light to other people who had stopped to stop traffic on the highway.
The car's two occupants were taken away in an ambulance, Daniel's grandmother, Shirley Y. Zimmerman, said.
Damage to the car was localized to its roof, windshield and hood while most of Cherry's midsection was destroyed.
“I've never seen a horse explode like that before,” Daniel said, adding one of the other horses that had escaped the farm was Cherry's mother.
Blood was still visible on the road the day after the crash.
“I don't even remember it,” Daniel said. “It's a hard thing to go through and I hope I don't see it again.”
Neither Daniel nor Shirley could understand how the horses escaped from the property and ended up on the road since the gates to areas on the farm where horses are kept were locked.
“The only thing that we found was the wire was a little bit loose in a couple places,” Daniel said. “We think they were reaching over and eating grass on the ditch line and pushed the wire down.
“It still bothers me how they got out there.”
Daniel said he buried Cherry on Aug. 15 at the farm and has not yet heard from the police about the matter.
Police said the occupants of the car were treated at hospital for minor injuries.
No charges are being considered in the matter.
