First responders used some innovative techniques to rescue two horses and their riders from the swamp Saturday.

The Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office says deputies responded to Three Island Park, which has some flooded trails due to the wet spring.

The horses had sunk into the bog and got spooked and ran further into it, eventually sinking so deep into the bog they couldn’t move.

Thanks to good directions from the riders, the group was quickly located.

With some borrowed OSB sheets from Bemidji Fire transported by a tracked all-terrain vehicle, deputies, a DNR conservation officer and a state trooper created a floating bridge, “leap-frogging” the OSB sheets until the ground was solid enough for the horses.

The effort took over four hours.

All photos courtesy of the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office

Larissa Donovan is the News Director for the stations of Paul Bunyan Broadcasting and has been, almost without interruption, since Election Day 2016. She covers all the beats in north-central Minnesota, such as local government, crime, education, environment and social issues. She studied communications at Bemidji State University. You can follow along with Larissa's live tweets of meetings and events on Twitter!

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