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What started as a nightmare for the owners of a critically injured horse turned into a lesson in hope and an understanding of what it means to live in a community for Sandy Spring resident Elisa Harvey.

Harvey, 50, and her youngest son, Alex, 15, were taking a ride on their Norwegian Fjord horses, Strawberry and Ture (pronounced Tur-uh), on Feb. 7 in the aftermath of the first blizzard of last month.

While riding along Olney-Sandy Spring Road (Route 108) past Sherwood High School, Harvey noticed blood on Ture's front right leg. A veterinarian by training, she knew what was wrong with her son's horse.

"Within seconds it became obvious that he had cut his leg on something – we never saw what is was – and severed the artery," Harvey wrote in a letter to The Gazette.

As soon as they stopped in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Ashton to tend to the ailing horse, bystanders began offering help.

Glen Hopkins, better known to the local community as "Cowboy Glen," and his friend, Brian Henry, were the first two at the scene, Harvey said. Cowboy Glen tied Harvey's scarf around the wound to control the bleeding. Henry, a certified scuba diver, drove to his home in Olney to fetch some surgical tubing he keeps as part of his scuba gear.

While the two men began working on a tourniquet out of duct tape and tubing, Harvey called her equine veterinarian, Dr. Anna Dechtiaruk.

"Elisa called in on the emergency line and said [Ture] cut his leg and was bleeding profusely," said Dechtiaruk, a resident of Sunshine who works out of Damascus.

The veterinarian gathered her medical supplies and was ready to go, only to discover she could not get her truck out of her snowed-in driveway. Henry set out to pick up the doctor.

By then, others came to Harvey's aid, including dentist John Arroyo and his daughter. Arroyo call local veterinarian Dr. Wendy Walker, who arrived later with extra supplies and bandages.

Three local girls offered to help calm Ture by feeding him carrots and holding onto his reins. Harvey's friend, Kyle Jossi, a horse enthusiast, arrived with halters and grain.

"There was blood in the snow," said Dechtiaruck, describing the scene when she arrived. "Everybody who stopped by for food was hanging around."

Dechtiaruck discovered the 1- to 2-centimeter-deep laceration to Ture's front right leg had torn his palmar digital artery, causing the massive bleeding. The artery runs just beneath a horse's skin, she said.

Alert and alarmed, Ture had to be held down while other bystanders stood by, taking pictures using their cell phone cameras, horse trainer Vanessa Schwartz said.

Schwartz, the owner and manager of Windsor Manor Stable in Sandy Spring, is the riding instructor for Harvey and her son. She remembers the "frantic" voicemail message she received from Harvey that day.

"She called in a panic saying her horse was bleeding to death," Schwartz said.

Schwartz arrived at the parking lot to a scene she described as looking like "a massacre."

"White snow and blood do not mix," she said.

After sedating Ture with tranquilizers and pain medication, Dechitaruck tied a knot around the artery before stitching up the laceration. Arroyo assisted her, Harvey said.

With the surgery a success, all that was left to do was find a horse trailer to transport Ture and Strawberry to nearby Avalon Farms in Sandy Spring for shelter.

Cowboy Glen, a horse trainer himself, contacted Bartley Farms, described the situation and asked to borrow a trailer he had previously sold to them. Bartley Farms agreed to loan the trailer, which Henry picked up.

Henry transported the horses to the care of Rumsey Keefe at Avalon Farms. About four hours after the whirl of activities began in the convenience store parking lot, Elisa and Alex Harvey were back home.

Weeks later, Ture is back at home with his owners and back to his "usual mischievous self," Harvey said, but not before running into a minor complication. Weeks after the incident, the stitches on Tore's leg tore. He now wears a bandage on the wound, which Harvey has to clean every day until it fully heals.

The experience can be summed up as a roller coaster of emotion for Harvey.

"It started as shocking, then terrifying and then amazing," she said. "It reminded me I love where I live. It made me realize I'm lucky to live someplace where people stop to help others."