Spooked Horse Terrorizes Car-Free Island

The horse got spooked and bolted down Main Street. Image: Lazy-K-Farms via TikTok

Mackinac Island in Michigan is one of the rare places in the U.S. where you won’t find a car, as the island has had a strict ban on cars for more than 100 years. That doesn’t mean the island is without horsepower, though; instead it turns to actual horses for power. While that might reduce emissions and cut the queues at gas stations, it does come with its own issues when the horses get spooked.

Grad Student Wants An Off-Road Capable Vehicle With Decent MPG For Fieldwork | What Car Should You Buy?

That’s exactly what happened on the car-free island earlier this year, when a horse pulling a carriage got spooked on one of the island’s main streets. In a video that’s doing the rounds on social media this week, you can see a horse running wildly down the street, dragging another horse and a wooden carriage with it.

In the clip, you can see the driver of the carriage gets thrown from the vehicle, and onlookers are seen running to safety. It’s a very similar kind of chaos to what you see when a car runs off the road and is a pretty wild site to behold on your morning doom scroll.

Mackinac Island runaway horses and carriage 20230618 094712~4

The incident apparently occurred in June while the horse-drawn carriage was waiting to load passengers on the island’s main street. In a statement shared with the Detroit Free Press, police chief Doug Topolski said that one of the two horses attached to the carriage got spooked and “broke the buggy pole, which connects the harness to the buggy.” The animal then ran down the high street, breaking a light pole and horse-hitching post on its way. According to the site:

“They were harnessed up at the time,” he said. “Then the driver fell from the buggy and suffered serious injuries, including head injuries.”

The horses were taken out of rotation and off the island, he said. They weren’t injured. He declined to identify the driver.

The driver of the buggy reportedly suffered “serious injuries” and has not yet returned to work on the island. The driver, who has not yet been named, was airlifted off the island following the crash, which involved a buggy from Mackinac Island Carriage Tours.