A very lucky escape

dwi

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Decided to go out for a gentle hack on Lil yesterday with OH walking on foot to help us with gates and in case Lil needed a lead past anything scary.

Got out of the village well, headed up through the woods and was just heading up the road past the gypsy camp when OH who was slightly ahead of us turned back to say watch out for the dogs at the gate way. Lil is normally fine with dogs so I wasn't too concerned but then suddenly a large Bull Mastiff type dog ran at the chain link fence snarling and barking. She span round and I managed to pull her up but then it just kept coming and ran along the chain link fence jumping and barking.

She went into a complete blind panic and began to bolt for home down the road. I managed to pull her off the road onto the verge, if we'd stayed on the road we'd both have been seriously injured as it is very, very, steep and I wouldn't normally walk down it for fear of slipping. TBH the verge, while softer and gripper is actually steeper and she tried to gallop down something resembling the Hicksted bank. She realised a few steps down that this was a stupid idea and tried to slam the brakes on but unfortunately momentum propelled us both down the hill.

At the bottom of the hill was a steep right turn and it was at this point as she lurched sideways that I flew out the side door. With a busy main road at the end of the woods there was no way on this earth I was letting go of the reins for fear that she would kill herself and someone else in a car accident. Luckily I managed to pull her up. Poor OH eventually caught us up and was really good holding Lily until help arrived from the yard.

Thinking that it was one of those injuries that would pass in five minutes I rang some friends to bring their car and come and rescue me. Unfortunately for me they decided there was no way they were moving me and called anambulance. The ambulance was pretty quick but I was half way up a steep hill and there was no way they could get the ambulance up or down through the woods to get to me and they felt it was too far to carry me. The air ambulance wasn't flying because of the ash so my friend's OH offered to bring his landrover and I was put on the spinal board into the back of the land rover to be driven to the ambulance.

From there on it was all very undramatic. I appear to have bones of cast iron as despite landing with all my body weight on my left hip on a large rock I am just very badly bruised and haven't broken anything!

Morphine and diclofenac later I feel alot better if not a little sick!

*Cookies to all who read this far*

Lessons to be learned, it could have been alot worse if I wasn't wearing my body protector. Having my phone meant we could ring for help and my hi viz meant I was easy to spot as I lay against the hedge in the woods.
 
Thank God there are no serious injuries to yourself, Lil or anyone else. Just goes to show how quickly things can turn. Hope your bruising heals quickly, you could try some arnica to speed it up.
 
crikey, v glad to hear that you're okay. hope Lil's okay too. can you take a rock-solid nanny with you next time, she's prob less likely to panic if there's a horse there not moving a muscle... thank goodness you were wearing a bp.
 
Thanks all.

Kerilli - I think it will be quite along time before I try hacking off the yard on my own again! We have lovely farm hacking and I think that will do fine for now. As far as I know Lil is alright but if she is injured no-one's telling me. Thankfully she was all booted up so any knocks shouldn't be too serious. I can't drive yet but am going to try and blackmail someone into taking me down this evening so i can check her.
 
OMG!! Glad you are okish good thing you had your bp on. Hope you take it easy and get back on borad when you are ready! Hanging on for dear life isnt nice either been there too.
 
DWI sounds awful, glad the only casulaty was your hat!

On a slightly different note, which yard are you on? I'm looking for somewhere at the moment and I think you live in my sort of area. PM me if you prefer.
 
GOsh sounds very traumatic, ive cantered down a road before ( admittedly not down a hill) on horse in a blind panic, i think its probably the scariest thing that has happened to me. Glad your both relatively un harmed
 
So glad you are both OK and it sounds like you kept pretty calm through the whole experience.

Random dogs are a real PIA, even if they are not going to bite or attack. We have to ride past the garden of a house in the middle of the village that recently acquired a young, black Labrador. The Lab leaps up against the fence barking loudly and is the right height to get his head and front legs to appear above the fence line. The fence is only two feet from the road and is just below head height when on horseback. The first time it happened both my pony and I nearly sh*t ourselves, and of course it happened just as cars were trying to pass. The passing drivers were completely mystified by our sideways leap right across the road.

We have had a number of these episodes, to the point where we started to pass the house on the opposite side of the road, for safeties sake. It has now happened often enough that both the horse just sniff at the dog, and he is just trying to say hello, he just happens to do it very LOUDLY.
 
a very stiff whisky for OH
as he must have been having kittens, big time, Bless him.
:eek::eek::eek:

Lol, I could hear OH screaming for me as he ran down the hill. The last thing I wanted was for him to suddenly appear round the corner like a screaming banshee and startle Lil into running off again as I lay on the ground trying to hang onto the reins.

I'm afraid to admit I used my best lunging voice and yelled a loud deep "Walk!" as he appeared! Not only did it stop OH but Lily stopped pratting about as well!
 
"WALK" - I like it!
Thank goodness your OK, you must be made of very tough stuff.
Eat plenty when you take those Diclofenac tablets, you need something in your stomach or they can make you feel pretty ill.
 
That sounds really scary. I can't understand why the AA wasn't flying though. I though the ash was at high altitude and obviously you were at ground level.

My OH is a Helo pilot and he hasn't been grounded at all by the ash.
 
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