By Troy Gillard (Twitter: @Troy_Gillard) - rdnewsnow.com

WATCH: Dramatic rescue after horse falls through ice near Rimbey

Jan 10, 2017 | 9:01 PM

RIMBEY – A young man from the Rimbey area is thankful he was able to help save a horse from a chilly death.

Cody Scott says events leading up to the cold weather rescue started at around noon on Monday when a neighbour came over asking for help finding their missing horse.

The 20-year-old then hopped on his skidoo and began searching a swampy area of Lloyd Creek near his family’s ranch, northeast of town near the Rimbey Gas Plant.

“After skidooing for about five or ten minutes I was able to locate the horse. With another person who was with me, we proceeded toward the horse and found that it had broken through the ice.”

After quickly returning to his house to call RCMP and then the Rimbey Fire Department, Scott said the two of them tried to rescue the horse on their own, but to no avail.

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“I had a rope with the sled. So we tried pulling the horse out with that but it didn’t work so he called some of his family members and they came down, this was about 30 or 40 minutes in. We tied a halter around the horse’s head and pulled for another 30 minutes or so, but she wasn’t budging.”

Scott noted that the river was shallow enough that the horse was able to stand, as opposed to treading water, but that she seemed to be sinking as time elapsed.

About two hours after locating the horse, Scott says they tried using a winch on the skidoo to pull the animal out of the river. However that too failed, blowing the belt on the skidoo in the process, leaving them with no machines to help.

“After the belt blew, we all tried pulling on the horse and were able to get her front end closer to being out. One foot was out of the mud, so I took off my glove and rolled up my sleeve and was able to reach down into the water and tie a rope around her front foot. We were able to grab that front foot and put it above the ice, which helped to get her second foot onto the ice.”

Scott says it was about 30 minutes after that when firefighters showed up and helped to pull the rest of the horse out of the freezing river. The exhausted horse then remained down for a few minutes before standing.

Looking back, Scott says there was only one thing running through his mind.

“That we were fighting with time to get this horse out and everything we were trying wasn’t working.”

When he spoke to rdnewsNOW, Scott said he hadn’t heard how the horse was doing but was planning on calling his neighbours to find out.

Video of the dramatic rescue has received thousands of views since Scott posted it to Facebook on Monday.

As you can imagine, the frigid rescue is an event he won’t soon forget.

“Yeah, it was something else.”