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April 17,, Wayne discovered the helicopter parked on his
property without his permission. He talked to Linda Paige who was there and
informed her they were trespassing. She blamed it on pilot error. Ray Renaud
has pictures of this.
May 5,, Helicopter dropped off equipment near Wayne's barn
without informing him they were going to be there. He wasn't home at the
time and discovered the equip. that evening. Dawson called in the evening to
say they would be working the helicopter over his field on May 6th.
May 6,,, Wayne put horses in the barn all day and no one
showed up.
May 7, 7:30 a.m. Wayne and Mary Jo were eating
breakfast when they heard the helicopter. It was hovering over their horses,
who was going nuts, running around, They ran to the barn and got the horses
in. They were not informed.
May 18, Apparently they cleared a path through the horse
pasture without informing Wayne they were there. Also put wooden marker
stakes in pasture after they were told not to put them in the field. Horses
broke one off and Wayne removed them.
May 20,,, 9:00 a.m. Wayne noticed his horses acting funny,
he went to the barn to find Blaze covered in blood on his chest area.
Cleaned the wounds. Went to check the pasture to see what he had got into.
That's when he found the path that the workers had cut on Mon. The horse had
apparently went up this path(previously had been a natural fence of
multiflora rose) to the top of the hill. Wayne tracked where the horse had
went, and followed the path back over that the horse had made in his
panicked rush, and found the fence torn down with a huge branch broke off
that the fence had been attached to.
Wayne went after the crew and finally found them, explained what had
happened and what he found. Larry Ellison and Osmear Padilla went with Wayne
and took pictures and examined the horse and took pictures. Linda Paige also
came out and took pictures. She also informed Wayne that the crews were not
supposed to cut a path like that. They had left branches cut at angles with
sharp points on them.
Wayne went to bed at 2:45 p.m. to get some sleep as he is on midnights at
the coalmine and drives heavy equipment. 4:00 p.m. he was awakened by Mary
Jo saying that the crew was back after telling them they were done for the
day. Wayne calls Troy, crew boss, and is told he didn't know they were
coming back. Wayne told the crew to clear, which they did. Wayne calls off
work because of lack of sleep. Troy Arnold was supposed to call Wayne Thurs.
morning at 9:00 a.m.,, at 9:00 p.m. Wayne still has not heard from him.
Waynes blood pressure was 161/97 throughout the day.
Conclusion. This experience was so unnecessary, a simple
phone call or knock on the door could have prevented this whole mess, as
Wayne would have stalled his horses for the day while they were working in
his pasture field. This is very unsettling to me and other horse owners I
have talked to in the area. I thought that providing names and addresses of
horse owners in the area the seismic testing was being done would prevent
this sort of thing, but apparently I was wrong. Thank God it wasn't any
worse than it was. This horse could have been killed, seriously maimed or
even had to be put down. Wayne and Mary Jo are devastated by this incident,
they feel like they should have done more to protect their horses, but as I
explained to them, this was not their fault, this crew should have notified
them that they were cutting this path and exactly when the chopper was
arriving. This is a total lack of respect toward the landowners.
Rose