These were the terrifying moments that young mother Nicole Graham had to go through when she “lived and died” to save her beloved horse from the mud before the sea water could come and drown them all.

Nicole was out for an afternoon walk with her daughter near the Geelong coast, south of Melbourne (Australia). Suddenly, she and her 18-month-old beloved horse named Astro got stuck in the mud. Before she could warn, a smaller horse that her daughter Paris was riding also got stuck in another mud.

Horrified by the young mother’s desperate rescue of her beloved horse

Nicole fought side by side with her beloved horse for hours in the mud

After helping her daughter and the smaller horse safely to dry land, Nicole had to go back to save the 230kg horse Astro who was still stuck in the “deadly mud”. While her daughter Paris ran to the car to call for help, Nicole stayed by the horse’s side. She bravely held onto the horse’s neck, fearing that the seawater would sweep it away. At first, her attempts to pull the horse out only caused her to sink deeper into the swamp.

“I was so scared. It broke my heart to see the horse struggling for survival. We were struggling this way and that. There was mud everywhere and every time I tried to get out, the mud pulled us down. We couldn’t move anywhere,” said Nicole, who owns more than 10 horses and runs a company specializing in equine dentistry.

However, after three hours of terrifying struggle, hope finally came to her and Astro when the rescue team arrived. At first, they and a local farmer used a tractor and rubber hoses to pull Astro out of the swamp, but were unsuccessful. A local helicopter was then called in as a last resort to save Astro from the “death trap”. Fortunately, their efforts were rewarded. Minutes before the tide hit, Astro was sedated by veterinarians and pulled out of the swamp.

Horror at the scene of a young mother risking her life to save her beloved horse

In the end, Nicole and the rescue team won the battle when they got the horse out of the swamp

Lieutenant Buckle of the rescue team said: “It was a battle against the tide and fortunately, in that battle, we won”.

According to Nicole, since she has been riding Astro for nearly 20 years, she has never encountered such a case and she also did not know that there was such a deadly trap. Therefore, she was extremely scared and it was only when Astro was successfully rescued by the rescue team that her terror disappeared.

Astro fought hard, said Ms. Sullivan, the rescue team nurse. “A lot of horses don’t do that, and I think if it wasn’t for his owner, he wouldn’t have had a chance,” she said.