WAXHAW, N.C. — A woman driving a horse-drawn carriage in North Carolina is being hailed as a hero after she helped steer the horse and the carriage’s passengers to safety after a dog attacked the animal.
The attack happened on Saturday at Cane Creek Park in Waxhaw, Bridger Medlin, the owner of the carriage ride company, said in a Facebook post on Sunday. Medlin said the driver, Amanda Medlin Underwood, was able to fend off the dog as it bit the horse, named Queen Charlotte, on its face and legs, WYFF reported. The 2,200-pound horse also suffered bites on its stomach and throat and was bitten through its jaw, according to WSOC-TV.
The attack was caught on video, the television station reported. Underwood was seriously injured, Medlin wrote on Facebook.
“We had a family on the carriage. There were families and kids everywhere,” Medlin told WSOC. “Nightmare came to life. It was something we never have experienced.”
In a video of the encounter that was posted on YouTube, children on the carriage can be heard screaming as the dog lunges at the horse, WYFF reported. The video showed the horse eventually kicking the dog away.
Medlin’s Facebook post said Underwood “risked her life to protect the riders and the horse,” adding that Underwood was able to “get the carriage riders off the carriage safely while fighting off the attacking dog.”
″Had Amanda not have done that, I feel sure that horse at some point would have quit fighting and run for his life, and that would have been catastrophic,” Medlin told WSOC.
No charges have been filed at this point, the television station reported. There is no leash law in Union County, but park operators said it is a policy that pets must be tethered.
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