One year after the search for Ty’Quarious Talford, who jumped off a bridge into the Catawba River, Lancaster County Coroner Kayla Deese and volunteers have developed a plan for handling searches in remote areas, involving horses. The search for Talford inspired leaders in Lancaster to assess how to improve future searches in areas difficult to traverse by foot or vehicle.
The Lancaster County Coroner’s Office Mounted Response Unit was created with volunteers and three horses sworn in on Jan. 11, making Lancaster officials believe they are the only coroner’s office in the country with a horse unit. The unit is not taxpayer-funded, relying on donations and fundraisers to cover expenses, and is available to all agencies for search and rescue operations.
The three horses, Thyra, Gunnr, and Kismet, are owned by Laura Pettler, who reached out to the coroner’s office following the search for Talford. Pettler sees the Mounted Response Unit as a way to combine her passions for horses and helping people, emphasizing that horses can help search teams reach remote areas faster than people alone.
