instincts; Darlin’ has even saved several people’s lives by grabbing and throw- ing rattlesnakes. When they heard both dogs barking, they knew that some- thing was very, very wrong. Diane and Pat ran outside and climbed the small hill that separates their
house from the foaling barn as fast as they could. Diane remembers the terror of that morning. “When I reached the top of the hill, that’s when I saw Darlin’ and the cat disappear at the back of the property,” she recalls. “Phlicka was standing at the edge of her pen and Pat was going after something to the side down in the wash, which turned out to be the colt. Cole was sitting on the baby and protecting it.” They found the colt with his umbilical cord and placenta still attached. “The cat had dragged the foal, literally as it was being born, out of the pen and had the poor thing over forty yards from his mother before giving up to the dogs that were after it,” she continues. She also thought that she’d never see her heroic Darlin’ again. “She was hot on the mountain lion’s tail as they disappeared into the deep brush.” The newborn’s will to fight was strong. Pat trekked out of the wash with
the colt in his arms and uphill towards the barn. He needed to pause to rest partway and when he did, the foal, bleeding from a mangled neck, struggled to his feet and tried to walk to his distressed dam. The newborn also had lacerations on his legs and body from being dragged.
“The cat had dragged the foal, literally as it was
being born, out of the pen and had the poor thing over forty yards from his mother before giving up to the dogs that were after it.”
After getting the colt back to his mother, calling their vet, and getting a
friend to come help with a trailer, Diane says, “I held Charlie in my lap in the back seat and kept something wrapped around his torn up neck as I could hear him wheezing air from some sort of tear.” They hurried the pair to San Luis Rey Equine Hospital where Charlie was rushed into immediate surgery. Shock and pneumonia set in almost instantly. Without the benefits of his mother’s colostrum, Charlie’s immune system was compromised. Phlicka had scratches and abrasions across her face, neck and shoulders, and a cut over her left eye that required four staples. Charlie had possible nerve damage and multiple puncture wounds, four on the right side of his neck and two deeper ones on the left side. “One wound was so deep that the back of his thyroid could be palpated, and his carotid artery was exposed,” Diane’s friend Allyson Gagnon, who helped care for Charlie, recalls. “It also created an air channel the entire length of his neck, so air was being sucked into his abdomen and creating pressure in his head and ears.” With the colt having sustained so much damage and trauma, Diane and his caretakers refrained from naming him until he lived through his first month. The cost of daily care at the equine hospital was exceedingly high. After
three days, Diane knew that she would need to seek help. She put into motion a fundraising campaign, including a GoFundMe crowdfunding appeal, which was able to help cover some of his medical costs. Charlie was nicknamed “the Wonder Colt” and his story was televised on KTLA 5 News,
Right, top to bottom: 1) Charlie immediately after his rescue from the attack by a mountain lion seconds after his birth on December 30, 2016. 2) Charlie being rushed into care at San Luis Rey Equine Hospital. 3) The side of his neck after seven days post- injury during a bandage change. 4 & 5) On day eleven, Charlie is sporting his slinky hood. He and his dam Phlicka recover at Allyson’s Norco farm.
Warmbloods Today 15
Diane Nilson Truxillo
Diane Nilson Truxillo
Allyson Gagnon
Hanah Fields-Austin
Hanah Fields-Austin
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