Em is an 11 yo Quarterhorse rescue mare who was adopted by Sanctuary Manager Sarah O’Rourke.
Em recently suffered a horrific injury that was life threatening. This is the 2nd time we’ve dealt with a difficult rehab at the Sanctuary. Many of you may remember Lumpy & his 10 pound plus shoulder tumor. The rehab took 90 days. That meant 90 days of consecutive wound cleaning & bandage changes. Sarah was completely committed to that as she has been to Em’s recovery.
I warn you not to open the second set of photos if you are squeamish looking at an open wound.
Sarah’s story is found below.
-Karin Wagner
On April 30, 2025 my daughter Sierra took a friend and her teacher for a tour of the sanctuary property. The fields were just starting to dry out enough to get the UTV to the back of the property. When they got there Sierra discovered our mare Em had severely injured her rear left leg. She sent me a photo and asked me to come bring the mare to the barn.
With what I saw and what Sierra had described, we were both prepared to have to have Em put down. She had degloved the face of her leg down to the bone. I was amazed when she was able to walk from the back of the property to the barn! We sent pictures to our wonderful vet, Dr. Willson with Mendocino Equine and Livestock, and she agreed to come out for an emergency visit. Luckily the Dr. Willson felt like we had a decent prognosis as long as we could stem off infection. She did advise it would be a long recovery time with a lot of bandage changes. Dr. Willson had to cut off a flap of dead tissue and applied a pressure wrap. After some injectable antibiotics and pain meds we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.
At the first bandage change we had some concerns about the tissue on her leg receding away from the exposed cannon bone. Dr. Willson recommended we try using Em’s blood serum as a wound dressing to encourage the healing process. I was able to draw blood into separator tubes and use my mom’s centrifuge to spin it down. The results over the next couple of days were very positive with signs of new granulation tissue.
The next step Dr. Willson recommended was utilizing a stem cell patch over the worst of the wound. The stem cells are designed to encourage rapid tissue growth and decrease healing time. The tissue needs to be left alone to allow for the growth to happen so bandage changes went from every 36 hours to every 5 days for the next 2 cycles. This time the improvement was incredible!
The down side of encouraging rapid tissue growth was the development of proud flesh. I am not normally squeamish with blood or removing excess tissue, which is required to stop proud flesh, but with this being my personal horse I was on the reluctant side to do the next part myself. A wonderful friend and vet student stepped in to lend a hand! She did a beautiful job of removing the proud flesh which has allowed the tissue to continue to recover normally.
We still have a long way to go! I am extremely grateful to all of my colleagues, friends and family that have given advice and assistance through this process. Em would not be here today without all of the support.
-Sarah O’Rourke
Please visit this link if you are interested in looking at the photos of the injury and healing process. These are VERY GORY. Please be warned these are not for sensitive stomachs, so please click (or don’t) accordingly.