Slough of despond: Rescue technician James Halton keeps Elvis the Welsh cob calm while attaching ropes to himFirefighters had to use all their ingenuity to rescue a horse after it became almost fully submerged in a muddy swamp.
Elvis, a 14-hand stallion, was stuck up to his neck in mud when owner Margaret Hill found him.
The 59-year-old grandmother said she feared the worst when she first saw her three-year-old Welsh cob trapped in boggy ground within nearby scrubland.
Heavy work: Rescuers spent nearly three hours using straps and ropes to carefully free the 14-hand horse'I went to check on the horses like I do, as I went up the field, he wasn’t there,' she said.
'He’s normally the first one to come out to me. I searched the field and I couldn’t find him - I thought he had been stolen.
'Then I noticed one of the horses whinnying. If it wasn’t for that, I’m sure we wouldn’t have found him.'
'The whinnying pointed us in the right direction.'
Extra effort: At this point the rescue team have been on site for an hour. It is another two hours before they are able to free the horseThe mother-of-four from Hawkes End, Coventry, said she had no idea how the horse managed to escape from his field, but assumed he had pushed his way through the trees bordering his paddock.
'The lad who was with me saw him first; he literally dropped to his knees,' she added.
'When I saw him I wanted to cry, His nose just kept going under.
'He called out to us. He was so calm though, he was brilliant. I knew they would rescue him, they were very good. He was so strong.
'I phoned my friend immediately, who called 999.'
Inch by inch: More mud is shovelled out and extra straps put around Elvissource: dailymail
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