Authorities have revealed how a Nevada veterinarian who went missing after a viral video showed him allegedly kicking a horse died.
Dr. Shawn D. Frehner vanished on Lake Mead in early April after a video purporting to show him kicking a horse went viral. After about two weeks of searching, his body was discovered near the Boulder Islands in the Lake Mead recreation area, according to KTNV 13.
On Wednesday, the Clark County Coroner released additional information about Frehner’s death, classifying it as a suicide. According to KTNV-13, Frehner had the euthanasia drug Pentobarbital in his body. Although Frehner drowned, the drug was identified as a contributing factor.
According to the National Institute of Medicine, the drug is widely used in the United States and Canada for animal euthanasia.
Frehner’s family previously told Fox 5 that he had been harassed since the video was published. Frehner’s family told the station that he went to Lake Mead after the video was released, and that what happened in the video was taken out of context. However, the TV station also reported that Nye County was conducting an investigation into the horse incident at the time.
According to 8newsnow, Frehner was hired to administer anesthetic shots to some horses at a rescue property that housed about ten horses and other animals. Shawna Gonzalez, the owner of the horse seen in the video, told the station that she heard her mother yell that Frehner had kicked the horse and ran to the window to see what was going on.
“Oh my God, Mom, he’s choking,” she exclaimed, according to 8newsnow. “He wrapped the horse around his neck three times, and he kicked him in the head.”
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Frehner used social media to explain what happened in the video. According to the newspaper, Frehner described the horse, known as Big Red, as wild and dangerously aggressive. He stated that the horse was unresponsive to the sedatives he administered to prepare him for gelding.
When the sedatives began to take effect, the horse fell, and his breathing became affected. According to the newspaper, Frehner wrote that he reached out with his foot to brush its face, which alerted the horse.
Shawn Frehner wrote, “I did not blatantly haul off and kick this horse, as it appears in the video,” the newspaper reported. “That was not my intention at all.” It was simply done to get the Horse in a better position so that he could breathe, get up, and move, allowing me to try anesthesia again.”
