A horse and its owner were leaving a Taco Bell in Riverside late Saturday, April 1.

No, this is not the setup to an April Fool’s joke, but a serious if bewildering situation: The cover of a utility vault under the sidewalk collapsed under the horse, sending it into a 5-foot-deep hole it had to be rescued from.

The accident happened in the 5600 block of Arlington Avenue in the city’s Ramona neighborhood just after 9 p.m. While horses are a common sight in certain Inland neighborhoods, this is not one of them.

“I don’t think it was designed — or anyone would’ve expected — that a horse would be walking there, in that part of the city,” Battalion Chief Jeff DeLaurie said Monday.

The vault was about 5 by 10 feet across and contained water distribution valves, DeLaurie said.

Fire officials knew the horse and owner were coming from a nearby Taco Bell — but couldn’t say whether they’d gone through the drive-thru. Officials also weren’t sure whether the rider was on the horse when it fell into the vault.

The call was initially dispatched as a medical aid, meaning a human needed assistance, said Riverside fire engineer Brian Davis, a member of the Riverside Horse & Animal Rescue Team.

But when firefighters arrived and found the horse neck-deep in a hole, HART was summoned.

HART is composed of members of the Fire Department’s Tactical Rescue Team, an on-call veterinarian and officers from the Riverside Police Department’s mounted unit. Police Chief Sergio Diaz funded HART after the mounted unit saw the need.

The firefighters who responded from Station 3, which stores much of the equipment for swift-water, confined-space and other tricky rescues, are specially trained for such incidents.

Rescuers formed a plan to haul the horse out using straps that were designed to pull cars out of ditches and were adapted for horses.

Firefighter Bryan Hoffman, who provided support to the rescuers, said being able to improvise is an important skill in firefighting, and this was no exception.

“When we get to a call, it’s dynamic and unpredictable,” he said.

“What made this situation different was this horse was big and needed a hoist,” Hoffman said. He said he believed the horse weighed 1,500 pounds. And the sharp pieces of the vault cover had fallen into the hole.

“It was a bad situation altogether,” Hoffman said.

Rescuers put straps around the horse’s shoulder area and the hind legs. Then they pulled — hard. The horse was able to jump up a little and, with the momentum, climb out of the hole, Davis said.

A veterinarian called to the scene said the horse suffered cuts to its legs but expected them to heal without issue, Battalion Chief Mike Staley said Saturday.

Once the horse was assessed, it was released to its owner, who brought it by trailer to a personal veterinarian, a news release said.

“It’s satisfying to put all of our training into practice,” Davis said.

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