I had a horrible accident with Jack yesterday.
I’m fine but he is not. We were out riding by our old house and came down
off a slight hill with a dip along the side of the road where the water runs
when it rains. When we got to the bottom he caught his hind leg in
some loose –under the grass and hidden – barb wire and went
down on his knees. I always watch very carefully for wire and never saw
it. He struggled hard to get loose and finally ripped the barb wire from
whatever it was attached to and ran down the road dragging it. I ran
after him and finally got him. It was horrible. He was spurting
blood and about 3-4 inches of flesh were missing with the tendon gone and the
bone totally exposed. Fortunately I had my cell phone and although I was
hysterical I managed to call the vets office. I got a tourniquet and held
it onto him. Dr. Peters got there about ½ hour later and managed to
bandage and fashion a temporary splint. By that time a nice man had
driven to get my husband who was outside cutting the grass and never heard the
phone. I also called a neighbor, Donna, who had been a large animal vet tech.
She came and helped before the vet arrived. She also went to get my car
and horse trailer – which of course were in different locations.
After much effort we managed to get him to the clinic where he was cleaned,
ragged flesh removed, given antibiotics etc. and had a cast put on. We
still don’t know what will happen. The barb wire also scraped the
bone and got into part of the joint. The only good thing was that it was
the front of his leg and that the joint it got into is not a real necessary
joint – if that is possible. We will be watching for infection
– especially in the bone and joint. He is going to be at the vets
for at least 10 days and if he makes it, he will need complete stall rest for 6
months. No riding for at least 1 year. If he makes it he deserves
to be a pasture pet for the rest of his life. It has been a horrible
day.
Has anyone’s horse experienced an injury like
this? I know he will never be my endurance horse again, but what are his
chances of living a comfortable life. Is it cruel or in his best
interests to do this stall rest? I don’t want to prolong any
suffering for him but if this is a curable injury, he deserves a good life.
BTW – I trained him to give to
pressure and if this had been an ordinary barbed wire incident I think he would
have been fine. The problem was that he fell into a ditch and was so off
balance - at one point he was actually laying on his side - that there was
nothing he could do but move and then when it kept digging in he really panicked.
