Veterinary Expenses for Raqqas
Donation protected
As many of you know, Raqqas, my mother's beloved endurance horse, was attacked by thousands of bees over a week ago and quickly had a severe allergic reaction that should have killed him. He went into shock almost immediately and, had it not been for quick action and an amazing vet team, he would not be here today. Raqqas has been her horse love for 13 years and this is the year they were going to attempt to conquer Tevis. We have no idea if his health will allow this to happen now, but I can tell you the vet bills are piling up quickly. After a week in the hospital, and a very long road still to go with recovery and continued veterinary care, we can use all the support possible.
Below is the link to the original facebook post. At this point he has just returned home. His leg is bandaged, his ribs are broken, and his skin is beginning to "scab" and peel off (like it would with a burn) due to the high concentration of stings, but he is sassy and eating well!!!
He has a many challenges still to overcome in the healing process, but he is a very strong boy with a ton of heart and has a lot of people on his team pulling for him. Please donate if you can, and share either way. Any, and all support is appreciated.
https://www.facebook.com/sarahgrace.wells.37/posts/675756426254517?notif_id=1569302784485433¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
Just in case the link does not work for you, here is his story from that Friday as posted by my mom:
"I don’t usually post much on FB, and this is quite delayed, but I needed the time to recover and gather my thoughts before putting this out there. If you know me at all, I’m sure you have heard all about my horse Raqqas and how special he is to me. He is hands down the holder of my heart in the horse world. Having said that, consider this a PSA that may save someone’s horse or just an insane miracle.
On Friday, after the large amount of rain from the previous days, I decided to take Raqqas out of his paddock to give him a break from the mud. I tied him to the trailer to enjoy his breakfast while I went inside to finish up a few things. This is a fairly normal occurrence. He ties and stands well and eating his breakfast tied to a trailer is not an issue at all. I can see him from the back windows of the house and he is munching away happily. About 10 minutes later I hear a strange noise, but can’t seem to locate where it came from. I heard it again and decided to walk out and check on Raqqas. I can see that he is agitated by something and head over to look closer. When I’m almost to him I can see that there is a dense cloud around him that I think at first are flies. As I get closer they begin to swarm and sting me. It is then that I realize that it is thousands of bees!!!! I immediately untie him and run him closer to the house. I was screaming and Mike quickly ran out to help me. The bees were so thick the were crawling out of his ears and he had so many stingers left in him that he looked like a porcupine with miniature quills. There were so many. He was dripping in sweat and had quite a cut on his back leg, but even the hose did not seem to deter the bees much. After a few minutes, and lots of water, we were able to get the bees away. It was at that time that I noticed he was showing signs of anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction). I’ve seen it many times in dogs, but never in a horse. I immediately called the vet, told them he was going into anaphylactic shock, and instructed the to come as quickly as possible. They told me to give banamine while we waited to try to help him.
Within just a few minutes he was weaving around and then he would jump eight feet in the air and strike or kick at whatever he imagined was hurting him I suppose. 1200 pounds jumping at you and striking is quite frightening. At this point we could see that he was not mentally appropriate and very unsure of his surroundings. The jumping and striking and rolling continued and eventually he would just jump and throw himself on the ground, or flip sideways in the air and come straight down. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. His legs would straighten and he would just collapse in a heap. I truly thought we lost him a minimum of six times while waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the vet staff to arrive. All we could do was try to stimulate him and keep him breathing. We took turns holding his head up, pushing him, pulling him, hosing him, screaming at him and even slapping him just to try to stimulate him. All this during a time when he would go from completely lateral and comatose looking, to jumping straight in the air and throwing people or causing them to dive/jump out of the way.
Eventually the vet team arrived and was shocked by what they saw. They immediately administered medications to try to stop the reaction, but it wasn’t even close to enough. His blood pressure was almost non existent even though his heart rate was over 200!!!!!
The only option we had left was to sedate him completely in the pasture and drag him into the trailer to transport him to the hospital. We could not put him in the trailer first because he was unable to walk and his flipping episodes in a trailer would have killed him or us or broken his legs at minimum. This was our only option.
Once sedated, and even with nine people, it was impossible to move his 1200 pounds into the trailer. Eventually we slung him and used a tractor and a lift-pull method to get him in the trailer. It was at this time that the vet told us that we had gone through all the sedation drugs she had and it would not be enough to get him to the hospital. His situation was getting more critical by the second. We did not think he would survive the trip. At this point we started driving to the hospital, and another staff member started driving toward us with more medication and fluids. We pulled over in a gas station parking lot and began treatment there. The IV catheter was placed, fluids were started and more sedation was administered.
Once we arrived at the hospital, it was another chore to get him out of the trailer. It took all of us and most of the staff to pull him into a sled, move him to the padded recovery room, and pull the sled out from under him. At this point they placed a protective helmet on his head, tied a rope to his tail and his halter, and began to allow him to wake up very slowly. During this time he was very disoriented, thrashing, flailing and unable stand. It was torture to watch him go through this. The combination of toxins in his systems and the drugs they needed to get him this far were having terrible effects on him. The only way we could even try to help him was through the use of head and tail ropes that were put through pulleys and manned by five to six people at a time. I asked the vet if this was normal for a horse to wake up from sedation so violently. She stated that none of this was normal because they had never had one live this long after this type of reaction. We were in relatively uncharted territory. She stated that every case of anaphylactic shock she had ever seen or heard about died so quickly that the owner either found them deceased, or they ran themselves to death because no one could get hands on them to even attempt sedation. I was floored!!
After what seemed like a decade, he recovered enough to move him to a normal stall to continue fluids and monitoring. He was placed on a 10 minute watch cycle and monitored continuously throughout the night.
At the end of the day he was in critical condition, covered in hundreds of stings, had a cut vessel on his back leg that we could not even begin to attend to other than placing a bandage, and some broken ribs from throwing himself on the ground...but he was alive. It was touch and go all night, but he was still with us, fighting , the next day.
After several hours of research, the vet told us that she could not find a single documented case where the horse survived!! She didn’t know why he was alive, but, according to her, he was pulling off miracle after miracle. He should have died in my arms in the pasture.
Today is his third day post-episode and he is looking so much better!! He’s eating and even has most of his very animated personality back! He’s the barn favorite according to the staff.
Without the help of Mike, my parents, Trinity, all of our friends that showed up to help at the drop of a hat (actually more like a frantic I-need-you-now phone call), the staff at Waller Equine, The million prayers I sent up and his own determination to live, I would have lost him. He is literally a miracle!!
I will have the bees sent for testing to determine exactly what we were dealing with. To all of my horse friends, use this as a reminder that severe weather can change the living conditions around your homes. Just because you have tied or kept your horse somewhere a thousand times doesn’t mean that very wet or dry conditions won’t drive other critters into those areas that are looking to escape the weather. Check their areas regularly for changes and unwelcome guests."
Below is the link to the original facebook post. At this point he has just returned home. His leg is bandaged, his ribs are broken, and his skin is beginning to "scab" and peel off (like it would with a burn) due to the high concentration of stings, but he is sassy and eating well!!!
He has a many challenges still to overcome in the healing process, but he is a very strong boy with a ton of heart and has a lot of people on his team pulling for him. Please donate if you can, and share either way. Any, and all support is appreciated.
https://www.facebook.com/sarahgrace.wells.37/posts/675756426254517?notif_id=1569302784485433¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
Just in case the link does not work for you, here is his story from that Friday as posted by my mom:
"I don’t usually post much on FB, and this is quite delayed, but I needed the time to recover and gather my thoughts before putting this out there. If you know me at all, I’m sure you have heard all about my horse Raqqas and how special he is to me. He is hands down the holder of my heart in the horse world. Having said that, consider this a PSA that may save someone’s horse or just an insane miracle.
On Friday, after the large amount of rain from the previous days, I decided to take Raqqas out of his paddock to give him a break from the mud. I tied him to the trailer to enjoy his breakfast while I went inside to finish up a few things. This is a fairly normal occurrence. He ties and stands well and eating his breakfast tied to a trailer is not an issue at all. I can see him from the back windows of the house and he is munching away happily. About 10 minutes later I hear a strange noise, but can’t seem to locate where it came from. I heard it again and decided to walk out and check on Raqqas. I can see that he is agitated by something and head over to look closer. When I’m almost to him I can see that there is a dense cloud around him that I think at first are flies. As I get closer they begin to swarm and sting me. It is then that I realize that it is thousands of bees!!!! I immediately untie him and run him closer to the house. I was screaming and Mike quickly ran out to help me. The bees were so thick the were crawling out of his ears and he had so many stingers left in him that he looked like a porcupine with miniature quills. There were so many. He was dripping in sweat and had quite a cut on his back leg, but even the hose did not seem to deter the bees much. After a few minutes, and lots of water, we were able to get the bees away. It was at that time that I noticed he was showing signs of anaphylaxis (a severe allergic reaction). I’ve seen it many times in dogs, but never in a horse. I immediately called the vet, told them he was going into anaphylactic shock, and instructed the to come as quickly as possible. They told me to give banamine while we waited to try to help him.
Within just a few minutes he was weaving around and then he would jump eight feet in the air and strike or kick at whatever he imagined was hurting him I suppose. 1200 pounds jumping at you and striking is quite frightening. At this point we could see that he was not mentally appropriate and very unsure of his surroundings. The jumping and striking and rolling continued and eventually he would just jump and throw himself on the ground, or flip sideways in the air and come straight down. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. His legs would straighten and he would just collapse in a heap. I truly thought we lost him a minimum of six times while waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the vet staff to arrive. All we could do was try to stimulate him and keep him breathing. We took turns holding his head up, pushing him, pulling him, hosing him, screaming at him and even slapping him just to try to stimulate him. All this during a time when he would go from completely lateral and comatose looking, to jumping straight in the air and throwing people or causing them to dive/jump out of the way.
Eventually the vet team arrived and was shocked by what they saw. They immediately administered medications to try to stop the reaction, but it wasn’t even close to enough. His blood pressure was almost non existent even though his heart rate was over 200!!!!!
The only option we had left was to sedate him completely in the pasture and drag him into the trailer to transport him to the hospital. We could not put him in the trailer first because he was unable to walk and his flipping episodes in a trailer would have killed him or us or broken his legs at minimum. This was our only option.
Once sedated, and even with nine people, it was impossible to move his 1200 pounds into the trailer. Eventually we slung him and used a tractor and a lift-pull method to get him in the trailer. It was at this time that the vet told us that we had gone through all the sedation drugs she had and it would not be enough to get him to the hospital. His situation was getting more critical by the second. We did not think he would survive the trip. At this point we started driving to the hospital, and another staff member started driving toward us with more medication and fluids. We pulled over in a gas station parking lot and began treatment there. The IV catheter was placed, fluids were started and more sedation was administered.
Once we arrived at the hospital, it was another chore to get him out of the trailer. It took all of us and most of the staff to pull him into a sled, move him to the padded recovery room, and pull the sled out from under him. At this point they placed a protective helmet on his head, tied a rope to his tail and his halter, and began to allow him to wake up very slowly. During this time he was very disoriented, thrashing, flailing and unable stand. It was torture to watch him go through this. The combination of toxins in his systems and the drugs they needed to get him this far were having terrible effects on him. The only way we could even try to help him was through the use of head and tail ropes that were put through pulleys and manned by five to six people at a time. I asked the vet if this was normal for a horse to wake up from sedation so violently. She stated that none of this was normal because they had never had one live this long after this type of reaction. We were in relatively uncharted territory. She stated that every case of anaphylactic shock she had ever seen or heard about died so quickly that the owner either found them deceased, or they ran themselves to death because no one could get hands on them to even attempt sedation. I was floored!!
After what seemed like a decade, he recovered enough to move him to a normal stall to continue fluids and monitoring. He was placed on a 10 minute watch cycle and monitored continuously throughout the night.
At the end of the day he was in critical condition, covered in hundreds of stings, had a cut vessel on his back leg that we could not even begin to attend to other than placing a bandage, and some broken ribs from throwing himself on the ground...but he was alive. It was touch and go all night, but he was still with us, fighting , the next day.
After several hours of research, the vet told us that she could not find a single documented case where the horse survived!! She didn’t know why he was alive, but, according to her, he was pulling off miracle after miracle. He should have died in my arms in the pasture.
Today is his third day post-episode and he is looking so much better!! He’s eating and even has most of his very animated personality back! He’s the barn favorite according to the staff.
Without the help of Mike, my parents, Trinity, all of our friends that showed up to help at the drop of a hat (actually more like a frantic I-need-you-now phone call), the staff at Waller Equine, The million prayers I sent up and his own determination to live, I would have lost him. He is literally a miracle!!
I will have the bees sent for testing to determine exactly what we were dealing with. To all of my horse friends, use this as a reminder that severe weather can change the living conditions around your homes. Just because you have tied or kept your horse somewhere a thousand times doesn’t mean that very wet or dry conditions won’t drive other critters into those areas that are looking to escape the weather. Check their areas regularly for changes and unwelcome guests."
Organizer
Trinity Nelzen
Organizer
Magnolia, TX
