Chilling video shows wild horse in meadow with girl, 3, moments before horror unfolded at photoshoot arranged by toddler's mom
A three year-old girl was filmed in a Nevada meadow with a mustang - moments before the wild horse horrifically-mauled her.
In the video, the girl's mother, Haley Wilkey, could be heard asking her young daughter, 'What is it?' as three-year-old Olivia points at the wild beast and her older sister watches on.
The three-year-old girl then turns around in the brief clip of the family's outing to Mount Charleston on Aug. 3.
Haley later told Fox 5 Vegas that she stopped recording when her son approached, and she had to scold him to slow down.
In that brief moment she was looking away, Haley said the horse closed in on Olivia and kicked her in the head - leaving the young girl unresponsive.
A chilling video shows a three-year-old girl admiring and pointing at a horse a few feet away from her in a Nevada meadow just moments before the beast kicked her
The girl's mother, Haley Wilkey, said she stopped recording to tell her son to slow down when the wild Mustang kicked three-year-old Olivia
She said she did not actually see the horse kick Olivia, but her older sister watched as the horror unfolded - saying Olivia instantly fell to the ground.
'Instantly I saw her head was opened,' Haley recounted.
'I thought she had died because she was unresponsive,' she said.
Panic ensued as the distraught mother desperately tried to stem the bleeding with the help of a stranger.
'He had a first aid kit. He gave me gauze, and helped me put pressure on her head until the bleeding slowed a little,' Haley said. 'If we let up a little bit of pressure, it would just start flowing again.'
The young girl fell instantly to the ground, her older sister said
With no cell phone service, the girl's father had to drive down the mountain to call for help. 'It was like, I think, almost 45 minutes of holding her head shut waiting for the ambulance to come,' Haley explained.
Olivia was airlifted to a Las Vegas hospital, where she underwent three-hour emergency surgery to repair her skull. She suffered a severe skull fracture and bleeding in her brain, as well as a contusion on her brain and a severe concussion.
Doctors monitored her closely for 12 hours before the procedure.
Olivia was airlifted to a Las Vegas hospital, where she underwent three-hour emergency surgery to repair her skull
The young girl is now recovering at home, after scans showed she had no brain injuries from the attack
'I'll make payments the rest of my life, I don't care. Just get her to safety,' Olivia's father, Austin, told KLAS, expressing the family's overwhelming relief that their daughter was alive.
According to a GoFundMe page set up by the Wilkeys, Olivia was released from the hospital and is healing at home.
Scans showed she had no brain injuries from the attack, and her family says she is now sitting up and playing, Fox 5 Las Vegas reports.
Olivia's family says she is now sitting up and playing
Still, the family said, 'we know she has a long road ahead, but a very optimistic one.'
The family is eternally grateful to the strangers who came to their aid, including the Good Samaritan who helped staunch Olivia's bleeding.
'I wish I got his phone number. I actually hugged him. I said thank you so much. You saved my daughter,' Austin said.
In retrospect, Olivia’s mother said her and her family were too close to the horse at the time. Knowing what she knows now, she said they wouldn’t have been there to begin with.
