Mary,at least you are ok and your horse has a good
chance to recover.
I have experianced two very bad accidents involving
barb wire fencing. One was similar to yours, buried in the ground and my
mare pulled it up with her hind leg. She got a few scratches, and I got a
crushed right knee and broken leg with resulted in hardware and knee
reconstruction and 5 months of recovery time. (all this because I tried to
get off her and she kicked out, lost her balance and flipped over on
me).
So although we love our horses, they are
horses. Accidents happen. Heck when you are dealing with a 1000
pound animal that has a natural flight response to just about anything that
they percieve as a threat...what can we expect? We try to keep them
out of bad situations, we try to train them to accept and give to
pressure. All we can do is do our best.
Again, at least you have Jack, and you are
ok. Don't focus on replaying this in your mind, wondering what you could
have done differently. This is not your fault. Poop happens.
Focus on the fact that Jack didn't lose a leg or his life, and more importantly
that you are ok.
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.
