The most important horse in my life remains nameless. A friend and I were riding him double and bareback. We are on an elevated road when a dog appeared out of nowhere, barking at us. The horse bucked down the incline, which was probably 9 feet from top to bottom. Well, I did stay on one jump longer than my friend. She went off first and then I fell. I landed on my left hip/buttock. When the dust cleared, Charlotte was coming towards me. I couldn't get up so she went for help. The horse and dog apparently went somewhere together, I don't recall. In a few minutes Charlotte came back with a neighbor in a car. They drove me home and my folks took me to the emergency room at a hospital about 20 plus miles away. They x-rayed and told me that the pain was from muscle spasms in my hip and buttock and that it would work loose (the muscle spasm, not the hip/buttock :). So,being 17, I figured square dancing would do the job! A couple of days later we got a phone call from the doctor who said I needed to come back to the hospital right away as the x-ray (which they had to send to another city to be read) showed a fractured back. Oh goody! I spent a few days there, flat on my back, having to be fed by a nurse. The funny thing was... they let me get up to go to the bathroom!
I rode lying in the back seat of a car to the larger city to a "real" hospital. I was given some morphine and taken somewhere to have a cast applied. I was allergic to the morphine and broke out in huge red hives and was so weak I couldn't hold my head up. I was supposed to stand and hold onto an overhead trapeze so they could wrap the casting material around me. I ended up being stretched between two tables while they wrapped the casting stuff around me. Consequently, the belly part bulged so I had a rounded belly. I spent a couple of months in that (I think) and then a month or so in a brace. The strange thing was, I never had much pain. The worst part was that there were no loose clothes available then except for housecoats and maternity clothes. It was rather embarrassing but that's what I wore.
I will always believe that my friend was hurt more than I was, but she didn't have the option of getting medical care. And you know what mothers always say? Don't wear ragged underwear because you might be in an accident? Well, my bra was pinned together, much to my mother's chagrin.
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Moms, I was riding my horse and going across the riverbottom. THere was a "river" from the rains and I thought my horse would ease in and swim across like my dads' horse (which was in front of us) My horse LEAPT with all his might and I went straight up in the air, then down into the water. It was COLD! The water really saved my behind.. and hip.. and back...
Love the stories. :) Thanks for sharing!
I like your horse stories too. I probably knew about your getting hurt, but I must have forgotten.
Medical care has certainly changed. My mom had to deal with rheumatic (sp?)fever when she was young. Gary's mom had trouble with a leg and was sent to live with an aunt (I think) because they thought she was eventually going to die.
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