Caretaker rescues horses from burning barnby Katy Ruth Campkrcamp@mdjonline.comJanuary 28, 2011 12:00 AM | 3383 views | 5   | 13   |   | 

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NORTHEAST COBB - Ashley Fleming, 20, came up the driveway of Oak Creek North Stables on Wesley Chapel Road in Marietta last Saturday night, and what she found was her "worst nightmare."

Fleming, the caretaker of 11 horses stables there, looked out her passenger window, she noticed that the light on the front of the barn was unusually bright. She soon realized the barn was on fire with seven horses - including her own beloved horse, Rose - trapped in stalls inside. 

"I just started screaming. I ran out of my car and immediately went to the back of the barn to open the doors. When I did, it was filled with smoke, and I saw that the front part and the ceiling were on fire," Fleming said.

In the midst of her panic, Fleming said the horses were eerily silent.

Fleming called Dana Karen, the barn's manager, several times but couldn't reach her. She then called 911.

Karen, who lives less than 10 minutes from the barn, said, "I actually picked up the last time when I saw Ashley was calling, but she didn't hear me and she was hanging up when I heard her screaming, 'No! No!' So I got in my car immediately and sped to the barn."

Meantime, Fleming was talking to the 911 operator, but she finally hung up and began an act of heroism.

"I didn't want to say goodbye to my horse, or any of the horses. So the adrenaline just kicked in and I decided I was going to do my best to get the horses out. I tried to get my horse, Rose, out first, but she was just circling the stall and wouldn't go, so I went after the other horses and either got behind them and pushed them out of the barn or took the lead rope and whacked them on the butt if they wouldn't move. Politely leading them out of the barn wasn't going to work," Fleming said.

As burning wood, hay and charcoal came crashing in pieces around her, Fleming was able to get the horses out one by one and into the pen behind the barn. But after several unsuccessful attempts to get one of Karen's horses, Bella, out of her stall at the front of the barn, where the fire was the worst, Ashley had to dodge the fire growing around her and get out. She and Karen feared Bella would be left for dead. 

"I was really scared. I don't even remember a lot of it, because fear and adrenaline were just taking over, but the fire was just surrounding Bella's stall, especially," Fleming said.

But once firefighters arrived and started spraying the barn, Fleming and Karen saw Bella running out of the burning barn toward them.

"The top of her blanket was completely burned off and gone, and only the sides were left, and we could still see sparks coming off of her," Karen said. "She has a few blisters and some hair that's singed, but other than that, she's fine, thank goodness."

Both said they believe the firefighters' blasting of water above and around Bella is what finally sent her running.

Karen said they believe the fire began in wiring connecting the light on the front of the barn to a box in the hayloft.

Fleming's stepfather, David Shields, is a contractor and said the barn could be repaired and back to new within a week and a half. A veterinarian friend of Karen's, Amy Crowder, has checked the horses and said they are perfectly fine, Karen said.

"Ashley's not a normal 20-year-old, and she did a great thing by saving those horses. She was so mature about the situation, and had everything very much under control. Had she gotten there 10 minutes later, we probably wouldn't have been able to get in and everything would have been lost."