Woman saved 10 horses from burning barn
Kristina Gowan says she didn't hesitate running into her burning barn to save 10 trapped horses.
Gowan, 22, was at home on Back Line in the Goulds studying for exams Monday morning when she looked out a window and saw her barn on fire.
Without stopping to put on her sneakers, Gowan ran to the scene, took a look at the smoke and flames, and entered the barn to save her horses.
"I wasn't scared at all, I was more scared for them," said Gowan. "I knew I could get out. They couldn't. They were trapped."
The 10 horses were locked in individual stalls. One at a time, Gowan and her boyfriend's brother opened the stalls and pulled each horse out of the burning barn.
"I was running through water but, I didn't even care about myself," recalled Gowan. "I just knew that I had a matter of minutes to get them out before it spread."
"You can see the fear in their eyes. You could tell they were terrified. They knew something was wrong."
The fire had already engulfed the second storey of the two-storey barn, but Gowan said she just kept working through the smoke, trying not to breathe it in.
"One side of the wall, the back part of the barn where we had our mares and foals, that was the worst part because that was where it was starting to spread," recounted Gowan.
"So the walls were on fire. Some of the fire was dropping, if that's even real. It looked like it was dropping and there was a whole lot of smoke."
Within minutes, Gowan managed to get all the horses out.
She also says she has no regrets about rushing into the fire.
"The thought of not getting one of those horses out ... it's a feeling that you would never ever forget. It's like leaving a person in there."
"Some people may question, it's only an animal. But to us it's not just an animal, they're our family."
