Police body cam captures officers freeing horses as flames close in
By: -----
Saratoga Springs, NY - Body camera video released by Saratoga Springs Police shows officers rescuing horses as a barn fire tore through the backstretch area of the Saratoga Casino Hotel harness racetrack.
The fire broke out around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. On June 16 at about 2:30 a.m., officers were dispatched to the barns at the Saratoga Casino for a report of a fire. When they arrived, they found a barn fully engulfed in flames.
Police Sergeant Parker Wilson's body camera video shows just how close he and the other Saratoga Springs Police officers were to the flames. He says as the fire threatened to spread to neighboring barns, he faced a difficult decision.
“The heat was so immense that I did not know if the horses could even breathe in their stalls, so once we got our way into the hallway of where the stables were, we just started the best we could to get the horses out,” Wilson said.
Police said officers and NYRA security personnel “leapt into action as the flames crept closer,” rescuing about 10 horses from an adjacent barn that were “frozen in fear” in their stalls. About 350 horses in nearby barns were led to safety. Wilson said rescuing the horses proved difficult.
“The horses that we’re entering the stalls in, they’re already obviously panicking; they’re afraid. As soon as they got out to the entrance of their stall, they could feel the wave of heat, so they didn’t want to get out,” he said.
Seventeen horses died in the fire. The barn housed 18 horses, according to Saratoga Casino Hotel, and an 18th horse escaped with minor injuries.
The horses were owned by two trainers. Robyn Mangiardi lost 11 horses, and Timothy Benson lost six horses.
Police said the body camera footage is “just a small snippet of the bravery and courage” shown by officers that morning and noted that officers with the department’s Mounted Unit understood “the horses' behaviors, equipment, and communication,” which helped in the response.
Police also recognized dispatchers working during the incident, saying only two dispatchers were on duty that evening and “seamlessly handled the heavy demands of an incident this size while also dispatching other calls throughout the city.”