Gerrard Kaonga
A mother held back tears as she spoke about the moment she was fearful for her three-year-old daughter’s life after a surprising incident with a horse.
Mother Haley Wilkey was hoping for a lovely day out with her family before tragedy struck.
She had intended for her three-year-old daughter to get a great picture with a wild horse while they were in a Nevada meadow, but things took a turn for the worse.
The mother was able to capture a video on August 3 of her daughter and the horse during their family outing in Mount Charleston just moments before it would end up seriously injuring the little girl.
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She briefly took her eye off her daughter to speak to her son and in this moment the wild horse attacked the girl, kicking her in the head.
Speaking to local media, Wilkey held back tears as she reflected on that moment saying she thought her daughter had been killed because she was unresponsive.
“Instantly I saw her head was opened," the mom explained. “I thought she had died because she was unresponsive.”
Thankfully, the help of a stranger played a massive role in getting the child to safety and stopping the bleeding.
Wilkey continued: “He had a first aid kit. He gave me gauze, and helped me put pressure on her head until the bleeding slowed a little.
“If we let up a little bit of pressure, it would just start flowing again.”
To make matters worse, the family had no cell phone service so the girl’s father was forced to drive down the mountain to call emergency services.
Wilkey added: “It was like, I think, almost 45 minutes of holding her head shut waiting for the ambulance to come.”
Those 45 minutes likely felt like an eternity for the family hoping for the best for the toddler.
Olivia was eventually airlifed to a Las Vegas hospital and underwent surgery to repair her skull, where doctors said she had suffered a severe skull fracture and bleeding in her brain, as well as a contusion on her brain and a severe concussion.
Amazingly, Olivia’s scans showed she has no brain injuries from the incident and according to a GoFundMe page set up to help support her recovery, she has been sitting up and playing.
The two parents are massively grateful to the quick thinking of the stranger but remark that they didn’t get his number with the father saying, at the moment, he told him he had saved his daughter.