3 years ago

Three years ago on April 5th, I went through one of the most horrific accident of my life to date.

I was horseback riding with a girlfriend,it was not my first rodeo but I wouldnt call myself a pro by any means but I knew the basics of riding. We were done riding the horses and back on the owners property, my horse had been a little skiddish the whole day but it didnt really bother me too much. We decided to take them for a dip. My horse wouldnt willingly go into the water so we took the round about way around and gave him no other option. He still wasnt getting in the water so we decided we would lead him across,my girlfriend took the reigns and started to lead him, the water was deep and came up to my thighs on this big horse, as he took the first step where he had to swim and no longer had solid ground he startled and pulled his head back,thus pulling my girlfriend out of her saddle and causing her to reach to pull herself back in the saddel,forgetting she had my reigns in my hand and she dropped them.

This began the adventure. The horse took off immedatley. I had no time to procees what was going on and instead just hung on for dear life. I indiana jonesd it for a few minuets buth the horse made a quick left and I didnt anticipate it soon enough and thats when I fell off.

I remember hitting the ground and bouncing twice, then when I landed I remember my tailbone hurting and just straightining my legs. This is where my ER instinct kicked in. I thought if I have something wrong and move it could be bad, if I dont move it would probably just be the best thing for all cases.It cant hurt to get checked and told nothing is wrong. So we called the ambulance and held off the cows till they got there.

When I got to the ER, the one I was an employee at, I greeted all my friends and was happy to get to a room and get cleared off that awful board! They cleared me,had ,e take my pants off and prepare for xray,I also recieved some wonderful pain meds that made it all better.I got cleared off the board by the doc because I had no deficit, I could feel and wiggle all my toes and fingers and the only part that hurt was my lower back a little, I learned that I had a hard time lifting my pelvis when I was taking my pants off and warned the xray tech about this when I had to move from the stretche to the table. I got myself over ther with them just helping me a little by pulling the sheet. Then comes the wait for the xray films. My doc, Tucker, came in and told me I had 2 teardrop fractures off of my L-2 and L-3 vertiabres. No bigge, pain meds and physical therapy he explained,BUT they wanted to do a CT just to make sure. He explained the worst case scernio was a burst fracture which would require surgery. So I went to get my CT when the tech came into the room he immedatley recognized me, lowerd the head of the stretcher and wheeled me to CT while we chated about what had happened. This is where it got bad and was my first sign something was wrong, knowing all the CT techs I was troubled a little to see them all gwaking at the screen(1 st bad sign), but kind of brushed it off and was ready to get out of there,as we walked back I asked the tech what he saw,I knew he couldnt tell me everything but I was fishing for clues. I told him what Tucker was looking for and all he said was " Lets just say the horse won"(2nd bad sign). SO he wheels me back to my room lowers the stretcher and I asked him to put my head back up, he said I should probably stay flat(3rd bad sign).This was also the final straw for me I lost it. THere had been a shift change and one of my coworkers didnt even realize she was my nures till she walked in and saw me crying my eyes out. She asked me what was wrong, I told her what the tech had said and she went out to see if my report had been faxed yet. I wasnt out at the desk but have heard as soon as she told Tucker he ran to the fax machine read my report,shared som explectives and yelled to get neuro on the phone NOW! HE came in and told me I needed to lay really still he ordered the collar to be put back on me and explained what I had been dreading. I had burst fractured L-2 into about 20 pieces and would need emergency surgery. Here is where I understand how bad it could have been, if I had moved the wrong way one of those pieces could have severed my spinal cord.

I dont remember all the events exactly that took place after this, but I know it took 8 hours in surgery,4 pins 2 rods and 2 cross-roads to put Humpty back to gether again! I was in a brace that looked like a mix of a bullet-proof vest and some weird fashion statement for14weeks. There was pain and there was tears and some days there still is but I know now that God had a plan that was bigger than mine.