Save Gabe's life at the emergency vet

Hi, I'm Gabe's owner, and he's one of the sweetest horses you'll ever meet. I'm not exactly doing poorly compared to some people, I can have him and that makes me lucky.

On Monday August 7, Gabe was getting to know some new pasture mates and it was going well until suddenly it wasn't. One of the horses chased him and he ran away and careened through a wooden fence which the fence board stabbed him in the flank. He then ran off while hurt and took shelter in the woods at the back of the pasture.

The staff on hand reacted immediately to perform first aid and get the emergency vet out immediately. I was able to arrive shortly afterwards to help due to their rapid response. He has a deep puncture wound in his left hip and the vet was worried it might have hit organs. She began treatment and called the nearest equine hospital in Ashland VA. Typically people here transport to NC State but that is a 4 hour drive and Ashland is only 2 hours. She patched him up for the trip while my trailer got hooked up.

We miraculously got him out of the woods and loaded. He'd lost so much blood the vet wasn't even sure we could get him to the trailer. The weather was super hot and severe thunderstorms were expected later (they split and missed the entire swath between where I live and Richmond). Every minute counted and Gabe had to try, and I told him that and like to think he listened even though horses can't speak English. Between 6 people, plenty of meds, we got him on the trailer and my husband and I hauled him to the hospital. Traffic was good and steady, the ride was smooth, he rode well.

The surgical staff at Woodside were ready for him and took immediate action. The bad news was he lost a lot of blood and was very weak. Good news, he didn't need blood transfusions. Bad news the wound was severe and deep, with wood splinters and internal damage. Infection is a high probability. Good news: he stood up after surgery and has been hanging in there. No vital organs were hit, just muscles. Bad news: recovery will be rough. He'll need a week at the hospital and it's ICU style. That's extremely expensive and he still might not make it. Good news: he's trying, holding on, and my reports have been that he's in rough shape but stable, so are we are trying too.

As I mentioned before, I'm not strapped for the bill here yet. We're engineers so we do better than most, but it will be difficult with that bill at the end of the week. The surgery and ICU after was 12k, and the week is looking more like 20k on the estimate and that number climbs the more intensive care he needs. Even the best catastrophic horse insurance that I've researched doesn't cover that much. This is a stage where most people will do cost based euthanasia as even with the cost of care he could crash anyways. He hasn't yet reached a place of no return where the vet has advised euthanasia on account of suffering. Because he is family to us and not just livestock, our goal is to get him through this week and back to his home barn where he'll have a stall with experienced on site care and can rehab him like Seabiscuit. Even the after care from the local vet will and the risks of long term after surgery will be there though they'll hopefully gradually decrease as he heals.

So I'm not setting this GoFundMe up because he'll definitely die if I can't afford this week, while it sucks we have a plan to pay for it. I'm setting it up because I think some people care about this special boy and may want to help him with his surgery and honestly every little bit helps. If you can't afford it I will appreciate every well wish and prayers to the deity of your choice. It is very stressful just day to day wondering if he'll even come home next week.