After working over 36 hours straight, a tired vet gets an emergency phone call in our continuing excerpt from the nonfiction book Equine ER chronicling 24 hours during foaling season at one of the country's top equine hospitals. 

Down in the intensive care unit, Dr. Bryan Waldridge’s extra-large filly had fought her colic for twelve hours and won. She was weak but stable. The puffy foal across from her was learning how to nurse (“starting to figure out the udder zone,” Waldridge said). It was now early Saturday evening. Waldridge had been working virtually 36 hours straight. He went home, and as he was getting ready to grab a shower, the clinic rang: Come back. Dystocia.

Foaling season brings babies with multiple problems from dystocias.

An hour is considered the maximum time to get a foal out alive (with rare exceptions) from the time water breaks, and by the time this mare got to Rood & Riddle, it had already been twenty minutes. Tucked inside its mother, the foal’s head was pointed down toward its chest and then turned toward one shoulder, instead of the normal position of head extended between front legs reaching forward (with back legs pointing straight behind).

The hospital staff went into what I thought of as the dystocia ballet. The choreography unfolded: Within three minutes the mare was anesthetized and hoisted in the air. Three to four more minutes passed during which Dr. Travis Tull reached into the mare’s uterus, took hold of the baby’s mandible (lower jawbone) with his thumb and forefinger, and positioned the head correctly. Straps were attached to the baby’s front feet, which were already protruding from the mother. As two interns pulled on the straps, Tull used his hands to guide and ensure that the head remained extended in the pelvic canal. In a few more seconds, the baby was out.

At a nearby gurney, Waldridge and Wolfe waited in white jumpsuits that made them look like workers in a nuclear power plant. The jumpsuits are made of a biosecure material that helps ensure nothing contaminates newborns. Tull’s team quickly handed over the filly and she was placed on the gurney. Wolfe clamped and cut the umbilicus; Waldridge inserted nasotracheal tubes and assisted the foal’s breathing with an ambu bag.

While techs wiped the filly clean and rubbed her to facilitate breathing, Wolfe and a tech got a catheter in the foal’s neck to administer any medication if she ran into trouble. 

Note: If you're coming to Lexington for the World Equestrian Games, author Leslie Guttman will be signing copies of Equine ER at the event. More details to come. If you want to reach Leslie in regard to the book, now in a second printing, email equineer@leslieguttman.com. Thanks for reading.