City Folk and Equines: Can't We All Just Get Along?

By JoshMogerman in Miscellaneous on Jun 12, 2011 8:00PM

Say what you will about the Web, but it has all made us all aware of new threats in our daily lives. Horses, for example. YouTube is littered with videos of children, cats and idiots being kicked and bitten by the equine menace. The Sun-Times reports on a woman who was clearly unaware of the reign of terror brought on by horses across the nation:

Linda O’Leary says she was snapping pictures of her grandkids feeding the horses at the Glenview Park District’s Wagner Farm last year when a chestnut-colored gelding came up and chomped down on her right hand.

“I just said, ‘He’s got my hand,’ ” O’Leary, a 65-year-old Northwest Side resident, recalled Friday of the incident last September in which she lost a finger. “I could feel a sucking feeling and then a crunch, and he opened his mouth, and I pulled my hand out, and it was gone.”

“It” was her right index finger, gone from the knuckle down. Ms. O’Leary is, of course, suing the Park District. And the Park District is, of course, on top of the problem:

[The executive director of the Glenview Park District] did say this much about the gelding: “To my knowlege this horse hasn’t bitten anyone before this accident.”

This is more proof that you just can’t trust a horse you don’t know. In all seriousness, as we continue to become a more urbanized society with less and less connection to nature, we sometimes need reminders that big critters are not toys or Disney characters. This story will do that... But don't stop visiting area farms and zoos because of one unfortunate finger---just don't turn your back on the hungry horses lurking in the shadows.