A Willimantic teenager was trying to pull a friend from the mud Wednesday when she got sucked in herself. She was stuck for an hour and firefighters had to eventually rescued her.
"It was very cold," Katernia Bacon said. "I couldn't feel my legs after a half hour."
Bacon was volunteering, like she usually does, on a horse rescue farm in Coventry and was sucked deep into cold mud.
"My friend got stuck in the mud and she asked me to help her, so I pulled her out and I got dragged in and I sank," Bacon said.
The owner of the farm and others tried desperately to pull her out.
"They were able to get one leg out and that's when they contacted the fire department," Coventry Fire Captain Tim LaChappelle said.
LaChappelle was the first at the scene and he has the muddy radio and boots to prove it.
"There was running water above and below the mud, so it created pretty much a sinkhole," LaChappelle said. "As soon as her leg got stuck, it created a vacuum around her leg and pulled her in."
Using Bacon's belt and other straps, firefighters were able to get her out and onto a stokes basket.
They then carried to her to one of the fire department's Suburbans and drove her to an awaiting ambulance. The ambulance couldn't get any closer or it might have gotten stuck in the mud too.
Bacon was taken to Windham Hospital to be checked out after spending nearly an hour in freezing cold mud.
"Her temperature only dropped by 2 and half degrees, so we just did a quick warm-up," David Bacon, Katernia's father, said. "When you are working on a horse farm, anything can happen."
Katernia said she is very thankful for the firefighters who rescued her. She said she would continue to volunteer at the horse rescue, despite the messy ordeal.
