Badger my flying monkey horse.
Ok... so im 22 years old, married and have 20 month old son and live in small farming town in Washington state. Some background on me and my experiance. I have horses for a long time I traveled all over barrel racing and showing when I was in highschool I showed mostly under 4H , so I HAD to wear a helmet. Soon though my highschool years were over and I had to move on and I quit wearing my helmet.... I started a couple of colts and showed somemore, I quit barrel racing due to back problems and my husband.
4 years after I graduated I took a training job at a farm in town starting horses. One of the rules was that I had to wear a helmet..."oh boy" I thought I went out and bought a brand new Troxel helmet and wore it everyday......on every horse....
On to my accident.... My horse Badger is a 6 year old paint gelding who loves to swim and play and is wellbroke. He's our go-to horse for trail riding or helping start young horses. This horse also is the horse I give lessons on he's just a great all around horse. So this accident happend only 4 days ago... I have been working hard for this dressage show in June, but d'aily I work anywere from 4-8 horses plus give lessons. SO I dont like to just sit around in the barn. I was going to ride this young 4 year old that was started but I didnt have another really horsey person around so I decided to saddle badger and go for a little walk around the arena ( he just had his teeth done the day before). I saddled him and led him into the arena. If I wasnt going to wear a helmet this would be the horse wouldnt wear one, but I did grab my helmet this time. I tightened the saddle and got on, it slipped a little but I just rejusted it. I started badger on a walking 20 meter circle, I put some leg on him to get more walk.....well I didnt get more walk. He took off bucking like a bronc! I tried slowing him down but he wouldnt. I was going to dismount, I feed the reins out and took my right foot out of the sturrip.....
(The rest was told to me by my mom in law who was watching my son at the barn that day) I guess I tried to slide off and Badger bucked and kicked my forward and I feel off balance and made full contact with his head and was knocked out. I fell off his left side head first and landed in front of him, Badger jumped over me. He took off bucking and I slowly got up. I didnt even notice my nose was bleeding bad.... or everything else yet...i was just mad that MY horse bucked me off. After I worked him a little on the ground I discoved that I had pinched him with the girth of the saddle when I reajusted that saddle. Poor baby. I felt fine, I led him out and tied him up and untacked him I took my helmet off, it look great except for the visor was broken. I had a few cuts and bloody nose but I was fine right?...haha not.
I went home and started having vision problem and balance. Sean loaded me up and took me to the doctor, our family friend was working that night. Sean my husband also brought in my helmet. The doctors put me in the trama room since I did take a header off of my horse. I had head to toe Xray and CT scan. I had two black eyes, swollen spleen, bruised bones and legs, broken fingures and the worse was front brain swelling. My doctor took the outside shell off of the helmet and it fell apart into two peices, He told me that it saved my life and that I would have likly died on impacked. Im still reovering, Im still sore and my vision is normal again, I should have no lasting injuries so thank you very much. Your helmet made sure my baby boy still had his mommy. I already orded me a new one too.