Authorities have released how a Nevada veterinarian who disappeared after a viral video showed him apparently kicking a horse died.
Dr. Shawn D. Frehner disappeared on Lake Mead in early April after a video that appeared to show him kicking a horse went viral on social media. After about two weeks of searching his body was found near the Boulder Islands within the Lake Mead recreation area, KTNV-13 reported.
On Wednesday, the Clark County Coroner released more information on Frehner's death, classifying it a suicide. According to KTNV-13, Frehner had the euthanasia drug Pentobarbital in his system. Although Frehner drowned, the presence of the drug was cited as a contributing factor.
The drug is commonly used as an animal euthanasia drug in the U.S. and Canada, according to the National Institute of Medicine.
Frehner's family previously told Fox 5 that he had faced harassment after the video was published. Frehner's family told the station that he went to Lake Mead after the video came out and that what happened in the video was taken out of context. However, the TV station also reported that Nye County had opened an investigation into the incident with the horse at that time.
Frehner had been hired to administer anesthetic shots for some horses at a property that functions as a rescue and had about 10 horses, as well as other animals, 8newsnow reported. Shawna Gonzalez, who owned 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 happening.
"Oh my god, Mom, he's choking," she said, according to 8newsnow. "He wrapped the horse around his neck three times, and he kicked him in the head."
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Frehner offered an explanation of the events seen in the video in social media posts. The newspaper reported that Frehner stated that the horse, known as Big Red, was wild and dangerously aggressive. He said the horse was unresponsive to sedatives he administered to prepare him for gelding.
The horse fell down when the sedatives began taking affect and the horse's breathing was affected. The newspaper reported that Frehner wrote that he reached out with his foot to brush its face and get the horse alert.
"I did not blatantly haul off and kick this horse, as it appears in the video," Shawn Frehner wrote, according to the newspaper. "That was not my intention at all. It was done simply to get the Horse in a better position so that he could breathe and get up and move, so I could again try to anesthetize."
