Let me start this off with the fact that I'm a new rider. When the accident happened, I'd only been riding for three weeks. Six or seven lessons under my belt.
I was trail riding with one of my instructors and something just didn't feel right. Not only did the lesson horse I was on throw a shoe 5 minutes into the trail ride, but he was acting different. Spooking at things he normally wouldn't spook at, just generally distracted and not all there. We were coming around a bend and the barn was within eyesight.
The next thing I know, we're barreling down the road. I wasn't sure what was happening. All I knew was that I couldn't get him back under control. So I bailed. I don't know if it was a conscious bail or if it was an accident. I can't remember. I woke up to find myself face-down in the dirt and my instructor freaking out. I ripped my helmet off, because I wasn't sure if I'd hit my head or not. There was a gash in the helmet. And the entire plastic casing on the outside had stripped away. I was covered in road rash.
Apparently, I hit the dirt first, skid a foot, and then rolled. The back of my helmet hit the corner of someone's driveway and I skid across it, only to wind up face-first on the other side of the driveway. A man in an SUV stopped to pick me up and take me back to the barn and it wasn't until my instructor got back to the barn that I found out that it was his fault the horse spooked. The speed limit on the road is 30. My instructor said he had to have been going at least 45. He flew around the bend and spooked the horse I was on.
If I hadn't been wearing my Troxel helmet, I wouldn't be alive right now.