Preventable accidents
I was witness to a traumatic morning. Got up first thing and headed over to Christine’s, she was taking a saddle up to Ossipee for someone to try and hopefully buy. Instead of dealing with shipping and other potential saddle trial hassles, Christine decided to take it up herself for the lady to try; as a side bonus, not only did the lady own several spotted cobs (dont let anyone fool you, they’re not gypsy drum vanner flavor of the month whatevers) that we wanted to check out for the hell of it, there was also a tack shop in the area that neither one of us had been to before. So I tagged along, figuring I could take some pictures, do some shopping and be back home in time to catch the Daytona 500 (Shut up. I like the horsepower, ok? Anything to tide me over until the F1 season starts. Anyways, it turned out to be an exciting finish).
We should have figured right from the git-go that things were a little off, starting when we walked up to her front door and knocked politely several times and waited and peered through windows and knocked some more before rousing a herd of barking dogs that eventually alerted their mistress to the fact that the visitors she had been expecting had arrived. In between knocks, I peered in to a nearby window, and jumped back a little with surprise when I realized I was staring straight through one room directly into a bedroom, where I could see a bearded man snoozing.
After we were let into the sparsely furnished cape, the dogs greeted us repeatedly by shoving their long snouts into our crotches, while the lady panicked for several minutes as she looked for her coat. Meanwhile, I did the polite thing and asked her if she minded me taking pictures of the horses, she squinted at me and asked me if I was a good photographer, as if I had the potential to have advertising quality photography that she could capitalize on. I shrugged and told her that my husband was the photographer in my family. She eventually gave up searching for the coat and put on a different one. Soon after, we were out in the barn being introduced to a somewhat unremarkable two year old gelding. I suppose being sport horse enthusiasts we tend look far beyond flashy markings and other such attributes to more useful qualities like temperament and conformation.
Several of the flavor of the week horses appeared to be half-breeds, which was made obvious by their clunky, drafty heads and straight shoulders. But, they had the right height and markings for the specified drum and/or vanner breed requirements, and that’s what flies in some horsey circles. I know I sound overly snotty and pretentious, but it’s only because I prefer a horse with the conformation and temperament to engage in a variety of sports. If that makes me a horse snob, then by gum I’m a horse snob. I may not be the most savvy horseman out there, and my equitation is still weak, but I’m trying. Conformation, not color or length of mane and tail, is what counts the most to me.
We were introduced to the rest of the small herd, and realized we were getting a sort of sale pitch couched in quasi drum/vanner breed lore. Eventually, the lady selected a three year old mare and led her into the barn. We chatted some more about the horses, and I took a few pictures as the lady tried the saddle on the mare. At first it looked like the saddle didn’t fit, but then Christine realized that maybe the lady didn’t know how to size up saddle fit from the ground, so she offered a few hints. After that, we should have just walked away, regardless of whether the lady bought the saddle or not. It was becoming clear that the lady didn’t know what she was doing, and with a young horse, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
The lady asked Christine to hold the mare so she could mount and try the saddle. That was mistake number one: we were in the barn, and there are a million different reasons as to why you should never ride in any tight space. But, it was icy outside, and we figured--assumed--the lady knew her horse and what she was doing. That was mistake number two: we assumed way too much about this lady’s horse sense. Mistake number three: she wasn’t wearing a helmet. Number four: she was getting on a green horse that by her own admission, had only had a saddle on six times prior to that day, which leads us to number five: the lady somewhat blithely mounted a green three year old that had not had any significant handling for several months on a cold day, the sort of day that horses tend to respond to with friskiness, which ain’t your cat’s brand of frisky.
Red flag city. Again, we should have just walked away. But, we assumed that the lady knew what she was doing; during the course of conversation she led us to believe that she was a knowledgable horsewoman. She asked Christine to lead her around the barn aisle, which was wide enough to easily turn even a large horse around in. The mare was quiet and accepting of both the saddle and the lady, who had earlier regaled us with tales of the real flavor of the week breeders’ horses’ stolid temperament; with children hanging off their tails and playing around ‘neath the horses, and around the horses’ hooves. Christine didn’t mind leading the lady around on the mare one more time to be sure that she liked the saddle.
Out of the blue, the mare exploded into an fearsome display of sheer equine panic. At first, she just let out a couple of seemingly playful crow hops. I couldn’t tell what was going on very well because the mare was being led away from me at that point, but there was nothing that I saw that could have spooked the mare, nor were the lady or Christine doing anything overt that would have agitated the mare. The crow hopping seemed to stir the young mare up into a frenzy, as she let out several nasty twist-a-bucks as Christine tried to force the mare’s head to the wall to regain control. The mare was obviously worked up past the point of responding to any reasonable demands of obedience; in order to save her own skin, Christine had to let the mare go, and by this time the lady lay face down on the ground in a heap, motionless.
As this horrid scene played out, I stood frozen in some sort of state of something hopefully approximating calm. The only thing I could do was wait for the mare to quiet down to the point where it was safe enough to reach over the lady and grab the mare out of the corner, before she had the chance to work herself into another frenzy and possibly step on the lady some more. It all happened so fast, we couldn’t tell if the lady hit her head on a beam as the mare bucked, or hit against the stall wall on the way down, or even got kicked or stepped on by the mare as she fell off. Christine helped me get the mare into a stall, wild-eyed but controllable, still saddled up, stirrups flapping in the breeze, but I was hardly concerned with leaving a tacked-up horse unattended when there was a potentially dead person in the barn.
I quickly closed the stall door, and Christine asked me in horror, “Do you think she’s ok?” but I think what she really wanted to know was if the lady was dead or not. She definitely looked it. I ran over to the lady and put my hand on her back, she was breathing heavily with her face in the dirt, but I didn’t want to risk moving her at all; I figured breathing in a little barn dirt was the least of her problems. Her teenaged niece, who had recently arrived at the farm, heard the commotion and stood dumbfounded in the doorway. “Call 911!” I barked at her, as the lady started moaning in addition to the heavy breathing. By this time, her brother-in-law had come into the barn and knelt down next to her, so I got up to look for a horse blanket to put over her; for some reason I decided that she needed to be covered even though she probably wasn’t conscious enough to register cold, but what the hey. There weren’t any blankets that I could see, so I backtracked to the aisleway to ask the brother-in-law if there was a blanket we could put on her until the ambulance came. By this time, the niece came back to the barn and asked if she should call 911, and we all replied Yes!! I swear to God she actually started to ask what the number was, but she got a grip and somehow someone managed to make the call.
The lady’s moans had evolved into rambling, I heard her mumbling that her head hurt, and where was she, and what happened, and who are those other people in the barn, meaning us, but she must have forgotten about our visit when she hit her head. Her husband and brother-and-law knelt by her and kept her still, and hearing her confusion about who was there we stepped out of the barn. There are no rules in the big etiquette book about how one comports oneself when attending an accident, so we figured the right thing to do was hang around until the ambulance came and offer to leave our phone numbers in case anyone wanted to contact us later on. The paramedics came, assessed the situation, asked us a few questions as to the nature of her injury, and began to “package” her up for the ambulance. I swear to god, they talked about packaging her up for transport, as if she were a gift from L.L. Bean ready for shipment.
Christine later told me that when the lady’s brother-in-law was asking her about what happened, he somewhat agitatedly replied that she hardly ever got on those horses, and whatever possessed her to get on one to try out a saddle, and some other things that led Christine to believe that the lady didn’t know as much about horses as she let on.
As we waited to the ambulance to take the poor lady to the emergency room, her husband came out, very calm, and kindly let us know that she would be ok, that it was a bad concussion, and perhaps we could arrange to conduct the saddle trial another day? We sensed that he was letting us off the hook from the situation by assurring us that things were under control now; the subtext being that we weren’t going to be held liable for the lady’s accident. In fact, the husband acted so calmly during the entire episode, it seemed like he had plenty of experience with this sort of occurrence. Everyone seemed to be strangely calm, even a little detached from the situation. But it seemed that we were cool with the husband, so we skedaddled.
We still felt awful about what happened, knowing that it was a completely preventable accident, particularly if either one of us spoke up and called the lady on her safety around horses--especially a green horse. But we put a lot of stock into the assumption that the lady knew what she was doing, and past experience teaches us that you can’t tell another horseman what to do or not do in his or her own barn, so we let the scenario play out to its sad conclusion. There is nothing like a motionless body sprawled on the ground to take you up short and give you a little perspective on your own habits and being. Especially if they are righteous and good. Heh.
We should have figured right from the git-go that things were a little off, starting when we walked up to her front door and knocked politely several times and waited and peered through windows and knocked some more before rousing a herd of barking dogs that eventually alerted their mistress to the fact that the visitors she had been expecting had arrived. In between knocks, I peered in to a nearby window, and jumped back a little with surprise when I realized I was staring straight through one room directly into a bedroom, where I could see a bearded man snoozing.
After we were let into the sparsely furnished cape, the dogs greeted us repeatedly by shoving their long snouts into our crotches, while the lady panicked for several minutes as she looked for her coat. Meanwhile, I did the polite thing and asked her if she minded me taking pictures of the horses, she squinted at me and asked me if I was a good photographer, as if I had the potential to have advertising quality photography that she could capitalize on. I shrugged and told her that my husband was the photographer in my family. She eventually gave up searching for the coat and put on a different one. Soon after, we were out in the barn being introduced to a somewhat unremarkable two year old gelding. I suppose being sport horse enthusiasts we tend look far beyond flashy markings and other such attributes to more useful qualities like temperament and conformation.
Several of the flavor of the week horses appeared to be half-breeds, which was made obvious by their clunky, drafty heads and straight shoulders. But, they had the right height and markings for the specified drum and/or vanner breed requirements, and that’s what flies in some horsey circles. I know I sound overly snotty and pretentious, but it’s only because I prefer a horse with the conformation and temperament to engage in a variety of sports. If that makes me a horse snob, then by gum I’m a horse snob. I may not be the most savvy horseman out there, and my equitation is still weak, but I’m trying. Conformation, not color or length of mane and tail, is what counts the most to me.
We were introduced to the rest of the small herd, and realized we were getting a sort of sale pitch couched in quasi drum/vanner breed lore. Eventually, the lady selected a three year old mare and led her into the barn. We chatted some more about the horses, and I took a few pictures as the lady tried the saddle on the mare. At first it looked like the saddle didn’t fit, but then Christine realized that maybe the lady didn’t know how to size up saddle fit from the ground, so she offered a few hints. After that, we should have just walked away, regardless of whether the lady bought the saddle or not. It was becoming clear that the lady didn’t know what she was doing, and with a young horse, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
The lady asked Christine to hold the mare so she could mount and try the saddle. That was mistake number one: we were in the barn, and there are a million different reasons as to why you should never ride in any tight space. But, it was icy outside, and we figured--assumed--the lady knew her horse and what she was doing. That was mistake number two: we assumed way too much about this lady’s horse sense. Mistake number three: she wasn’t wearing a helmet. Number four: she was getting on a green horse that by her own admission, had only had a saddle on six times prior to that day, which leads us to number five: the lady somewhat blithely mounted a green three year old that had not had any significant handling for several months on a cold day, the sort of day that horses tend to respond to with friskiness, which ain’t your cat’s brand of frisky.
Red flag city. Again, we should have just walked away. But, we assumed that the lady knew what she was doing; during the course of conversation she led us to believe that she was a knowledgable horsewoman. She asked Christine to lead her around the barn aisle, which was wide enough to easily turn even a large horse around in. The mare was quiet and accepting of both the saddle and the lady, who had earlier regaled us with tales of the real flavor of the week breeders’ horses’ stolid temperament; with children hanging off their tails and playing around ‘neath the horses, and around the horses’ hooves. Christine didn’t mind leading the lady around on the mare one more time to be sure that she liked the saddle.
Out of the blue, the mare exploded into an fearsome display of sheer equine panic. At first, she just let out a couple of seemingly playful crow hops. I couldn’t tell what was going on very well because the mare was being led away from me at that point, but there was nothing that I saw that could have spooked the mare, nor were the lady or Christine doing anything overt that would have agitated the mare. The crow hopping seemed to stir the young mare up into a frenzy, as she let out several nasty twist-a-bucks as Christine tried to force the mare’s head to the wall to regain control. The mare was obviously worked up past the point of responding to any reasonable demands of obedience; in order to save her own skin, Christine had to let the mare go, and by this time the lady lay face down on the ground in a heap, motionless.
As this horrid scene played out, I stood frozen in some sort of state of something hopefully approximating calm. The only thing I could do was wait for the mare to quiet down to the point where it was safe enough to reach over the lady and grab the mare out of the corner, before she had the chance to work herself into another frenzy and possibly step on the lady some more. It all happened so fast, we couldn’t tell if the lady hit her head on a beam as the mare bucked, or hit against the stall wall on the way down, or even got kicked or stepped on by the mare as she fell off. Christine helped me get the mare into a stall, wild-eyed but controllable, still saddled up, stirrups flapping in the breeze, but I was hardly concerned with leaving a tacked-up horse unattended when there was a potentially dead person in the barn.
I quickly closed the stall door, and Christine asked me in horror, “Do you think she’s ok?” but I think what she really wanted to know was if the lady was dead or not. She definitely looked it. I ran over to the lady and put my hand on her back, she was breathing heavily with her face in the dirt, but I didn’t want to risk moving her at all; I figured breathing in a little barn dirt was the least of her problems. Her teenaged niece, who had recently arrived at the farm, heard the commotion and stood dumbfounded in the doorway. “Call 911!” I barked at her, as the lady started moaning in addition to the heavy breathing. By this time, her brother-in-law had come into the barn and knelt down next to her, so I got up to look for a horse blanket to put over her; for some reason I decided that she needed to be covered even though she probably wasn’t conscious enough to register cold, but what the hey. There weren’t any blankets that I could see, so I backtracked to the aisleway to ask the brother-in-law if there was a blanket we could put on her until the ambulance came. By this time, the niece came back to the barn and asked if she should call 911, and we all replied Yes!! I swear to God she actually started to ask what the number was, but she got a grip and somehow someone managed to make the call.
The lady’s moans had evolved into rambling, I heard her mumbling that her head hurt, and where was she, and what happened, and who are those other people in the barn, meaning us, but she must have forgotten about our visit when she hit her head. Her husband and brother-and-law knelt by her and kept her still, and hearing her confusion about who was there we stepped out of the barn. There are no rules in the big etiquette book about how one comports oneself when attending an accident, so we figured the right thing to do was hang around until the ambulance came and offer to leave our phone numbers in case anyone wanted to contact us later on. The paramedics came, assessed the situation, asked us a few questions as to the nature of her injury, and began to “package” her up for the ambulance. I swear to god, they talked about packaging her up for transport, as if she were a gift from L.L. Bean ready for shipment.
Christine later told me that when the lady’s brother-in-law was asking her about what happened, he somewhat agitatedly replied that she hardly ever got on those horses, and whatever possessed her to get on one to try out a saddle, and some other things that led Christine to believe that the lady didn’t know as much about horses as she let on.
As we waited to the ambulance to take the poor lady to the emergency room, her husband came out, very calm, and kindly let us know that she would be ok, that it was a bad concussion, and perhaps we could arrange to conduct the saddle trial another day? We sensed that he was letting us off the hook from the situation by assurring us that things were under control now; the subtext being that we weren’t going to be held liable for the lady’s accident. In fact, the husband acted so calmly during the entire episode, it seemed like he had plenty of experience with this sort of occurrence. Everyone seemed to be strangely calm, even a little detached from the situation. But it seemed that we were cool with the husband, so we skedaddled.
We still felt awful about what happened, knowing that it was a completely preventable accident, particularly if either one of us spoke up and called the lady on her safety around horses--especially a green horse. But we put a lot of stock into the assumption that the lady knew what she was doing, and past experience teaches us that you can’t tell another horseman what to do or not do in his or her own barn, so we let the scenario play out to its sad conclusion. There is nothing like a motionless body sprawled on the ground to take you up short and give you a little perspective on your own habits and being. Especially if they are righteous and good. Heh.
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