Destiny Woolsey
Dear editor,
I am writing this letter to let everyone know how harmful littering can be. Not only does it hurt the Earth, it can also harm animals.
I live off Highway 71 and I am 14 years old and have lived around animals all my life.
I love my pets. I am especially fond of my horses. I wouldn’t want any harm to come to them.
I have been riding horses for the past four years in the fields, along the surrounding dirt roads and in the ditches. I have noticed a lot of paper coffee cups, McDonald’s paper bags, chip bags, pop bottles, etc.
What has always been my worst fear was for one of my horses to step on a thrown beer bottle. This nightmare, which seems just like yesterday, happened to me almost two weeks ago.
I was riding one of my horses over to a neighbour’s house in the long grass of a ditch. When I see saw the house, I made my horse start to trot.
He stumbled in a hole and at the time heard the ear-wrenching sound of glass breaking. I knew right away something was wrong.
As soon as I got to the mowed part of the ditch, I jumped off to check if my horse was okay. There was a problem and he was not okay. He was bleeding, bleeding bad!
I ran to the nearest house as my horse followed me. They were not home. I took off one of my shirts and wrapped my horse’s leg as tight as I could so that I could get to my neighbour’s house.
As I got to the dirt road, my neighbour met me and we tried to stop the bleeding.
We phoned everyone we knew who knew anything about horses to come and help.
Fort Frances doesn’t have a large animal vet, so we had to phone Dryden’s vet. That had to be the longest three-and-a-half hours of my life.
Since my horse’s artery was severed, he bled for approximately five hours. He could have died but because of all the help I received from neighbours, we slowed the bleeding until the vet came.
It took three stitches on the inside and 10 stitches on the outside.
I don’t think it’s fair that my horse has to suffer the consequences for someone else’s carelessness.
I wish I could say that this story has a happy ending, but I don’t know that yet because my horse still risks the possibility of foundering, becoming lame. Only time will tell.
Destiny Woolsey
Emo, Ontario
P.S. I would like to thank everyone for helping me and my horse! And beer bottles are returnable! Please, don’t litter.
