Please consider your speed / horses

Someone joined my site tonight and this is their story

My friend and I decided to go out for a ride one lovely sunny evening - 22nd August 2003. Just before 6.30 pm we exited the yard on our horses, closed the gate behind us and waited in the off road entrance to cross the road onto the bridleway the other side. To our right was a very bad left hand bend some 200 yards away, to our left was a clear stretch of road for some 500 yards to the junction of a main road. As usual, we looked and listened, all was clear so we started to cross the road. As the horses’ heads were crossing the white lines in the middle of the road, I heard the scream of a high performance motorbike and as I heard the noise I saw a blue motorcycle come hurtling out of the bad bend straight towards us. I screamed to my friend who was on her horse on my right "Move! Go! Go!" We kicked on towards the other side of the road, but to our horror as we attempted to get the horses out of the line of fire, the cyclist lost control of his bike, whacked the brakes on and slammed broadside straight into the abdomen of my friend's beautiful Trakhener. The force of this impact slammed this massive 16.5 hh horse into mine, trapping my right leg and foot, and driving the stirrup iron straight into my horse's rib cage whilst at the same time jettisoning me straight upwards out of the saddle into the air, up and up for what seemed like a lifetime. I remember thinking this is it I am not going to survive this, when there was a huge slamming feeling and I blacked out. I think this was my friend's horse, the motorbike or the rider or all 3 slamming into me. Anyway, I came to a few seconds later bouncing on the road from my knees onto my front. I saw my horse get to her feet and gallop off down the road, but my friend's horse was split asunder with all his guts, blood and stomach contents pouring out all over the road. My friend was in hysterics kneeling beside her horse trying to scoop the guts back into his body cavity. I was paralysed and could not move, but somehow managed to crawl across the road to where my mobile phone was lying in its shoulder bag and ring my husband. The traffic all came to a stop of course, and someone rang the ambulance. My friend's horse was panicking of course and lashing out, kicking my friend several times but not hurting her. I was lying beside the horse calm but terrified that he was going to get to his feet and come crashing down on me. At the same time the motorcyclist was pressed up against me and kept moaning and trying to take off his helmet. I shouted at him not to do that but to lie still and took his hand to try and calm him. I wanted to kill him, but luckily for him my christian duty came to the fore. The ambulance came, put me in a neck brace, made me stable, tended the motorcyclist, took him off, and then got me into an ambulance. There was blood and guts and stomach contents everywhere. The ditch beside the road was filled up with my friend's horse's blood. We were all covered, the road was covered, it was horrendous. The police came and interviewed me and off we went to hospital.

We WERE wearing high viz vests, bright tops etc. etc. and most important of all we were not on our mobile phones – our phones were taken away for 3 weeks by the police for forensic testing. We did absolutely nothing wrong. The motorcyclist’s speed going into the corner was estimated at being well in excess of 120 mph. Coming out of the corner the speed was estimated at 100 +. Unfortunately, he was looking down at his bike as he came out of the corner, he was not looking where he was going. When he did look up, he panicked, whacked the brakes on and the resultant skid mark was 30 metres long. His speed at point of impact was 70 mph. The handlebars ripped open the stomach of that poor horse, who died in agony at the scene. My horse as I say galloped off, but died 3 days later from massive internal injuries caused by my stirrup iron being blasted into her ribs.

My friend thankfully suffered nothing worse than a broken toe and severe PTSD of course. I suffered a broken neck, Ischial ramus, possibly coccyx, right ankle, severely damaged right knee and of course severe PTSD. But the hospital sent me home the same night saying I had no breaks!! I should have sued them, but didn’t, I had enough to cope with at the time. The pain was indescribable, and I still am suffering a lot from neck pain and arthritis in the various broken bits that went undiagnosed for a long long time.

The moral of this story? ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS wear high viz clothing. We of course were – had we not been, and had we been on our phones, the police would have prosecuted us. As it was, they wanted to prosecute the motorcyclist, but the CPS said because he was now a paraplegic he had been punished enough and he got off scot free in terms of the law. Me, I would have thrown the book at him, travelling at that speed on a country lane. I would have had him up for attempted manslaughter.

How awful   I'm very aware of the risk to horse riders on the roads

It had me in tears! lol

Terrible I am always aware of them, and drive very carefully  

made me cry to Hayley

That is incredibly sad. I'm so sorry that happened!

Jeez I'm in shock just reading that, goodness knows what it was like to suffer the pain caused. I always drive carefully especially around country lanes and am always cautious when driving around horses, I know what a kick from one can cause.

That is so sad. I saw a pic on fb once of a horse that had been hit lying with a blanket over it, it was really sad