Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

You know, how when things are going along just great, that little something 
that comes along to screw it all up?  In my case it was a chunk of rolled up 
barbed wire, just about 10 feet or less rolled into a ball about 2 feet in 
diameter.  It was dusk, and I was thinking more about getting back to the 
trailer 
than I was about watching where we were going.  Riding my Anglo mare with Barb, 
my riding partner.  Fog got her foot caught in the wire, and started to 
bucking a little.  I yelled WHOA and she did, for a second.  I was trying to 
figure 
out how to get off when she started to bucking again, harder this time, 
because the wire was in her tail, chasing her.  So I went off to the rear after 
about the second or third big jump, landed on my left hip and back of my head.  

It hurt real bad, so I told Barb to just let me lie there a minute.  When I 
tried to get up, I got to my feet then almost passed out.  Turns out I couldn't 
sit up without passing out either, so I just laid down.  Barb tried to figure 
out what to do, then finally put her gloves and coat on me, and got on her 
horse and led mine back down to the trailers.  She called her husband, and the 
Ambulance, then unhooked her horse trailer and came back up to stay with me.  I 
laid on the ground for about 1 1/2 hours til the ambulance got there, then 
took a 45 minute ride down to the hospital.  Broken pelvis, between the socket 
of the femur and the seat bone.  

Spent 5 days in the hospital, have pneumonia from lying down so much.  But I 
got out a week ago, and have slowly been getting better, trying to cut back on 
the pain meds, trying to do as much activity as I can (mostly from bed to 
chair to kitchen, with an occasional trip outside the house.  

I DID get out to see the horses last Sunday, we had to haul hay and grain (my 
son & brother did the grunt work, I just supervised)

Overall, It's been a real PAIN!  I did learn a few things:

   When something like this happens, I had always assumed that however I got 
hurt, I'd be able to make it out of the riding area on my own.  BAD 
ASSUMPTION.  I will from now  on be a lot more careful about letting people 
know where 
I'm going, and staying on the main trails. (There were a few "I told you so's" 
over that!)

   I will ALWAYS wear my helmet.  I hit my head as hard as I hit my butt, 
hard enough to break something, and didn't even have a headache!  Yeah 
Tipperary!  

So, maybe a bit later in the ride season, jeri
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Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough 
~  Theodore Roosevelt

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