This is the moment a deputy mayor rescued a horse from drowning in a flooded street in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.
The heroic images show the vice mayor of Santo Antônio da Patrulha, Marcelo Santos, clinging with one hand to the back of a jet ski and with the other grabbing the lasso to prevent the horse from being dragged in the municipality of Canoas.
Santos at one point tightened the rope with his teeth and then reached out and grabbed the horse’s halter to pull the animal closer to him.
The rescue took place Monday as he and volunteers helped residents evacuate their homes.
“We were rescuing people, but when we saw the horse, we never let it die,” Santos told a Brazilian media outlet. G1.
The vice mayor of Santo Antônio da Patrulha, Marcelo Santos, traveled 50 miles to the municipality of Canoas to volunteer to rescue residents stranded in their flooded homes after last week’s storm in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil, and saved a horse from drowning on Monday.
Marcelo Santos, deputy mayor of Santo Antônio da Patrulha, helped rescue a horse (not pictured) from drowning in a flooded street in the municipality of Canoas on Monday.
The city of Santos, located 50 miles from Canoas, did not suffer significant damage from last week’s storms and flooding.
“I saw the horse walking everywhere, just with his nose out,” he recalled. ‘I jumped into the water to put up a rope. I got on a jet ski and went to stand with her. When I came back, the most beautiful thing: the horse wanted to be together again.’
Santos traveled back home on Wednesday. His actions were applauded by the mayor of Santo Antônio da Patrulha, Rodrigo Massulo, through a publication on Instagram.
“I have yet to meet anyone braver, with more heart and the drive to save lives than my deputy mayor,” Massulo wrote. “I can only ask God to always help him like this.”
TV Globo footage also captured the rescue of another horse on Thursday after it was seen stranded on the roof of a house a day earlier in the municipality of Canoas.
Footage showed army soldiers and firefighters placing the horse on a raft after a veterinarian was able to sedate it.
Vice Mayor Marcelo Santos approached a horse on a jet ski and pulled it out of a flooded street in the southern Brazilian city of Canoas on Monday. Canoas has reported four of the 107 deaths after last week’s storm in the state of Rio Grande do Sul
Vice Mayor Santos said the horse (not pictured) he rescued from drowning on a Brazilian street Monday did not resist when he grabbed it by its lasso and halter and escorted it to dry land.
The army and firefighters rescued a horse on Thursday after a TV Globo helicopter spotted it stranded on the roof of a house a day earlier.
The most recent report from the Civil Defense of Rio Grande do Sul confirmed that 136 people are missing and 374 have been treated for injuries since April 29.
The storm severely affected 425 of the state’s 497 cities and has displaced 232,100 residents of the 100,000 that have been destroyed.
Rains returned on Wednesday to parts of the state, including its capital, Porto Alegre, where rescue missions were halted due to strong winds.
Gov. Eduardo Leite said the state will need at least $3.6 billion to cover damage caused by the storm.
‘Resources are needed for several areas. I insist: the effect of the floods and the magnitude of the tragedy are devastating,’ he stated.
