An Indiana town marshal wielding a chain saw rescued a horse that became wedged between two branches of a tree trunk in dangerous subzero cold.

Winfield Town Marshal Dan Ball says the horse somehow became stuck in the multi-trunked tree one Wednesday morning in the town about 15 miles (25 kilometers) south of Gary.

He told The (Northwest Indiana) Times that he feared the horse might die because it collapsed at one point and was growing weak with the temperature hovering near minus 20 degrees (minus 28 Celsius).

But when a neighbor brought a chain saw to the scene, Ball braved the frigid conditions for 45 minutes to cut away branches until the horse was able to pull free.

The horse then managed to walk back to its barn and eat breakfast.

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Authorities in India’s most populous state have been ordered to bar code stray cows and use vacant buildings to shelter them in response to farmers’ complaints that the closure of slaughterhouses has created a menace of crop-destroying, free-range cattle.

An order by the Hindu nationalist-led Uttar Pradesh state government also says that officials should use radio frequency identification technology to scan the tags to help keep track of stray cows. 

Since the ultra-conservative government began closing cow slaughterhouses in 2017, many farmers have abandoned their cattle, unable to continue feeding them after they stop producing milk, creating a crisis for farmers and town-dwellers, as well.

Slaughtering cows is banned in parts of predominantly Hindu India, including Uttar Pradesh state. Cows are considered holy by Hindus.

Earlier this year, fed-up farmers in the city of Agra herded a group of stray cows into a government school building, forcing school children to attend class outdoors, in an attempt to focus government attention on this growing problem.

Surendera Narain Pandey, a farmer, said that he used to sell an old cow for up to 10,000 rupees ($140), using the proceeds to buy a milk-yielding one that costs five times more.

“The situation has changed. We cannot afford to feed an unproductive cow, now,” he said.

Just goes to show that one man’s sacred cow really is another man’s beef...