A Nevada mother unwittingly filmed the tranquil moment of her toddler walking through a Nevada meadow moments before a wild horse kicked the girl in the head.
“I thought she had died because she was unresponsive,” Haley Wilkey recalled about the harrowing incident.
Little Olivia’s skull split from the brutal mauling — and her mother had to hold her head together for the 45 excruciating minutes it took for help to arrive.
Miraculously, the 3-year-old survived the harrowing incident and was discharged from the hospital less than a week after her brush with death — and her mother captured her attacker on film.
In the video, Olivia can be seen admiring the beautiful black Mustang from several feet away as it munched on the grass at Mount Charleston, 40 miles west of Las Vegas.
Wilkey, her husband and their four children were at the mountain range to do a photo shoot for another family when two wild horses appeared.
“What is it?” Wilkey asks her toddler, who sweetly responds: “It’s a horsey.”
That’s when Olivia turns her back to the wild horse — which can weigh up to 1,000 pounds — and the video cuts.
Seconds later, the beast closed in on the little girl and mauled her.
Wilkey told Fox 5 Vegas that her screams alerted a stranger who played a major role in saving Olivia’s life as her father drove down the mountain to find cell service in the remote area.
“He had a first aid kit. He gave me gauze, 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,” said Wilkey.
Wilkey added, “It was like, I think, almost 45 minutes of holding her head shut waiting for the ambulance to come.”
The ambulance transported the little girl to a helicopter, which then flew her to the University Medical Center.
Olivia underwent a three-hour surgery in which a neurosurgeon fused her broken skull back together, her family said in an online fundraiser.
She also suffered a bleed in her brain, contusion on the brain and a “severe concussion.”
Despite her grievous injuries, Olivia was talking with her loved ones just three days later and was released in less than a week.
Her grateful family told Fox 5 Nevada that they’re sharing their story in hopes of warning other parents about the wild horses on Mount Charleston.
In hindsight, Wilkey admits she was too close to the beasts, but now says she would leave the meadow the minute the horses appeared.
