BETHEL, Pa. —
Clovis Crane woke up to his daughter screaming, “There’s a fire! There’s a fire!”
He ran to his burning barn in Bethel Township, Lebanon County, which housed 22 horses. He dodged in and out of the smoke-filled structure, pulling out seven horses, then tried to rescue an eighth.
“She just wouldn`t come out,” Crane said. “I was pulling her out. I couldn`t stay any longer because I was choking. The smoke had knocked me down.”
Crane Thoroughbreds breaks and trains horses, often preparing them to race. The farm had 60 horses before the fire March 7 that killed 15 horses.
Ruins continued to smolder the next morning, as Clovis’ wife Joanna wrote in a Facebook post, “I am rising after a restless night to a living nightmare, facing the aftermath of one of my biggest fears in life. I have never dreaded a new day until now.”
Yet one by one, friends and community members began to arrive at the Crane house, bringing food for the family and supplies for the horses.
“I don`t ask for a lot,” Crane said. “I just try to be a good guy. You don`t think of it until it`s [your time of need]. and people are there.”
The seven rescued horses are receiving veterinary care. Two were sent to a hyperbaric chamber in Maryland, and the other five are being treated at the Crane farm.
“So far it's mostly smoke inhalation damage where their lungs may or may not be damaged. We don`t know yet.,” said Michael Chovanes, the veterinarian treating the horses.
Beyond the emotional toll of losing the horses, the fire left a significant financial loss. The 15 horses that died were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Crane said. They were to become racehorses as part of Pennsylvania’s $20 million horse racing industry.
“A very important industry, and the Cranes are a big part of that,” Chovanes said.
The cause of the fire has not yet been released.
A GoFundMe has been set up to rebuild the barn.