Mindy's Injury June 2018

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW

Complete photo documentation of Mindy's Injury occurring on June 7th, 2018

Mindy injured herself in a freak accident where (WE THINK) she was running down the field with other horses and ended up running into my gate post. In the process, her left front leg slid under the corner of my aluminum gate and the uncapped corner ended up 'degloving' her leg, exposing it to the bone. She then ran back up the field where she stood and bled. Fortunately she was found within the first hour of it happening. This is a story of her recovery. There are graphic videos and photos to follow so consider yourself warned! The photos of her leg are grouped by month. For individual dates please click on each photo.

I always knew Mindy was tough......poor girl had to walk down the field to see the vet. I am sure she was in shock.

The vet cleaned it up and stitched it up in the only spot where she could. A drain was put in at the bottom. We figured that this flap of skin would create a biological bandaid for the bone to keep it moist and hopefully prevent bone death or infection. We were also concerned about having enough blood flow to her leg. We figured that this skin would eventually slough off once it died. Hibitane cream was put on along with telfa non stick bandages and it was then wrapped in gauze and pillow wrapped and pressure wrapped. Mindy was locked in a stall and given bute for the first 5 days as well as being started antibiotics (she stayed on antibiotics for 3 weeks).

The following photos are from June 8th to end of June 2018. Clicking on the individual photo should take you to the actual date if you are curious. After the initial 5 days of hibitane, manuka honey was used in the hole to help with granulation and derma gel was used on the sides to prevent proud flesh from forming. The wound was kept wrapped at all times except for the twice a day it was debrided with high pressure water before being treated with the honey and derma gel and re-wrapped.

This next set of photographs were taken over the month of July 2018. The wound was still getting treated twice a day and kept wrapped. Debriding was still done for 15 min with high pressure water as well as gauze was put directly on the wound so it would also rip off and debrid and help make the wound bleed (and prevent proud flesh). Honey was put in the hole until it was non existent and derma gel was used all over the wound. Mindy was allowed paddock turnout during the day by mid July.

The next set of the photos are from August. I was down to only doctoring the wound once a day and started to polo wrap it so that Mindy could go back out to pasture with the other horses. Derma gel was used when it appeared any proud flesh was forming but honey was used most of the time to help close it up. I did try to leave the bandage off mid August but she wanted to bite it because it was itchy.

This last set of photos were from Sept 2018. I left it open and put a mixture of honey, coconut oil and essential oils to keep it moist and it helps with her chewing on it. I also spray it with bitter apple spray to keep her away from it. I am happy to announce that she is totally sound. Please enjoy the short video from mid Sept at the bottom of this page :)