Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Kat wrote
"I am willing to bet that the number one cause of horse accidents is
carelessness; the better the horses and milder the conditions, the more
likely the rider is to be careless."

I completely agree with Kat on this , here's my careless accident.

A month ago I was out riding with two of my endurance friends , we were just
finishing up a 20 mile loop and heading back to the backcountry trailhead .
I was second in line and we were just walking down the trail visiting , I
had my reins pretty much just laying across Eagle's neck and decided to take
my feet out of the stirrups to flex my ankles , the second that I did it I
knew it was a mistake but too late to do anything about it . I believe Eagle
was half asleep and when I shook my ankles out I startled him , he jumped
hard to the left and I without reins or stirrup went off on the right side
landing on my back on a big sharp rock . It knocked the wind out of me so
took me a few minutes to be able to talk , I knew I had done "something" to
my back so my other friend Colleen went for help and Louie stayed with me .
Against Louie's advice I decided that I had better start walking out as my
back was starting to seize up and I knew if I did not start moving
immediately I would not be able to . I also knew there was no way they could
get a four wheeler or helicopter in to get me out where the accident
happened . It is very steep , and rugged terrain so the only way they could
get me out was to bring in a stretcher in and I was pretty sure they would
be cussing me the whole way :-) Very slowly we hiked out about 1 1/2 miles
to the trailhead where I then laid down on my stomach and waited for the
ambulance to arrive . When the EMT's arrived they put me on a backboard ,
securing my back and neck. . Come to find out I had broken my spinal process
6 thru 11 , the nurses almost did a standing ovation when they found out I
had a helmet on as I live in big cowboy/ranch country so helmets are not the
normal head gear . The Dr. told me that I had probably saved all of my upper
vertebrae by having my helmet on . I was lucky in that I did not further
injure myself by walking out , I did get quite a lecture from both the EMT's
and the nurses though for walking out and  not waiting for help .This 
luckily
has been my first serious accident in over 45 years of riding, hopefully my 
last!
                   Drin Becker
                   Mtn Region


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