There was only one way out for Natasha, an eight-year-old paint-thoroughbred cross, and that was up.
Natasha was on a trail ride with owner Alicia Hutcheson near Auburn, California, when they decided to take a dip in the American River, in a stretch going through a canyon.
Natasha got stuck and couldn't get out.
John Madigan, from the University of California, Davis, vet response team, told myfoxboston.com: "There was no way to go up, no way to go down, and the only out would have been this airlift that we did."