Complacency kills….nearly!

[Hightale]

I had a little break from the board whilst I recovered from a pretty horrendous accident that I escaped relatively unscathed(ish) from.
I’ve been hoof trimming for 10 years and rehabbing barefoot professionally for 8. I’ve been under a lot of horses and trim pretty much every day. Nowadays its only horses directly under my full care here on my yard, so I know these guys inside out.
I am as a result horrendously complacent about my own safety and it bit me firmly on the @rse last month
I was doing a pre-vet visit trim for a horse here recovering from a tendon sheath injury, I sat / knelt on the floor to avoid straining her leg, something I’ve done dozens of times, because I know the horses….
Well this one jumped back as one of the others bit her over the barn divide.
Hoof put straight down into my groin, and onto my leg - the half nippered hoof going straight into my thigh. I was tumbled backwards in a melee of legs and as she was trying desperately hard not to stand on me I got kicked in the head, my face / neck, my ribs, back and arm.
Unbelievably other than some bloody spectacular bruising from my abdomen down to my knee, muscle tear in my thigh, three cracked ribs, cuts and bruising to my face, neck, arm and back…and a lovely concussion that still has me grasping for words weeks later….I am ok.
I so nearly might not have been!
Reason for post? How many of us blindly do stuff because we know the horse, or trim wearing inappropriate shoes or clothing, hop on a horse we know without a hat…etc, etc?
Stay safe peeps, life is precious!

PS I wish I’d had the kind of concussion where your brain shuts off the incident and you can’t recall what happened, I can remember the whole thing in minute detail, every millisecond in glorious technicolour. It’s given me nightmares and even affected my confidence riding.

[Willesdon]

Thank you: a very good reminder.

[Texarkana]

Oh my goodness. I’m glad it wasn’t worse for you!

And thank your for sharing. I know I’m continually guilty of doing unsafe things with my horses in the name of complacency. It’s a good reminder to be more attentive.

[2DogsFarm]

A Million Thanks for the reminder.
Sorry you had to have The Experience to be reminded.
I hope your brain puts away the gory details & your confidence returns.

As I get older, I remind myself my reflexes are as sharp as ever… Only in my mind
My body begs to differ
Where even 10yrs ago I would Jump!, now I proceed with caution.

[goodhors]

Glad you are recovering well, maybe time will help your memory improve for the words.

I was on my company safety comittee for many years, reviewed many accidents of differing severity. Most were the result of not following safety precautions, doing the needed extra steps. Lots of sad results with “doing it the easy way”.

I love my horses but they ARE horses that may react unexpectedly to something, so no shortcuts allowed during their handling. Have to keep reminding ourselves of that. Even with Old Trusty (27yrs) doing our same daily routine turnout, rope is held correctly, he walks beside me, no grazing as we go. Turn him to face me, inside the gate, before halter removal.

Doing anything around horse hooves on your knees is dangerous because you can’t move fast enough to get out of the way. Squat down instead. Never be working on a horse where another horse can reach or touch them! Those were basic 4H training rules for the beginners, along with never stand directly in front or behind ANY equine. No excuses were good enough for breaking these rules in our Club.

As they said at work, “There is a reason for doing things just the way you were trained. Shortcutting, improper procedures will kill people.”

[c0608524]

Glad to hear you weren’t more severely hurt.

I work in an industry where safety is (supposed) to be a number one priority. It has made me into a “what if…” thinker and that has transferred into my horse life.

To go off on a tangent, I can’t get over the amount of unsafe practises people post online to get that “cute” social media post. Two stick out in my mind.

One was a young toddler placed in a field infront of a horse for a photo. Horse was grazing, toddler was placed on her bum infront of the horses head. Seriously, one wrong move or spook from the horse and the child would have been smooshed.

The other was of someone clearly driving while taking a selfie video of her and her cat. Like, super apparent she wasn’t paying attention to the road, and she was the only person in the vehicle.

And, both I commented on calling out how unsafe they were being. One thing to put yourself at risk but to put others in your line of fire in an attempt to get some “likes” online is gross.

Obviously this isn’t what OP was doing, so again, sorry for going on a tangent here. But the flip side is I wish more people would share stories like this to show how dangerous complacency can be - so thank you OP for sharing your story.

[beowulf]

Oh no, I am so sorry to hear you were hurt. Thank you for the reminder. I too am guilty of becoming too casual around my horses. A reminder at any time that they can hurt us – accidental or not.

Jingles for a quick recovery.

[swmorse]

Whoa, thanks for the reminder and sharing your story. Hope the healing goes well

[Hightale]

@goodhors

I love my horses but they ARE horses that may react unexpectedly to something, so no shortcuts allowed during their handling.

Doing anything around horse hooves on your knees is dangerous because you can’t move fast enough to get out of the way. Squat down instead. Never be working on a horse where another horse can reach or touch them! Those were basic 4H training rules for the beginners, along with never stand directly in front or behind ANY equine. No excuses were good enough for breaking these rules in our Club.

As they said at work, “There is a reason for doing things just the way you were trained. Shortcutting, improper procedures will kill people.”

Yup! Absolutely agree! And do you want to know something hilarious?
I wrote the handbook and do all the risk assessments for staff and students here. I trained in H&S and in a previous life actually audited for H&S accreditations.
I even teach safe handling for cooperative care courses here and would never, ever let staff or students do what I did.
Stupid and lucky just about sums me up right now

[Hightale]

No worries about the tangent, I’m often found pointing the finger at clips rolling my eyes at the dumb stupidity on show. Nice karmic biteback for me lol!

Thank you everyone for the kind comments and I do hope it does some good if it makes us all check in with a bit of common sense in our daily horse handling

[goodhors]

I am certainly glad “you made it” with mostly physical injuries instead of the other! I know folks who didn’t survive horse incidents. We will attribute your survival to the Force, good luck, or it just wasn’t your time yet. Coming from a Farrier family, we are overkill on setting where horses get worked on. The customers seldom have a clue about our safety, do not work to prevent things going wrong. We need to be aware of horse mood, surroundings, make rules (no loose dogs!) to prevent getting damaged.

You might ask a second person in the work setting to “keep an eye on you” to SPEAK UP when they see you backsliding into complacency again. You will, it happens with repetitive jobs. We did that at work, to keep us aware of our setting, taking proper safety precautions in ALL work situations. Monthly safety meetings on various topics helped keep us AWARE, looking at things harder, before taking action.

I am a safety demon, do not want anyone around me getting hurt. This is in all areas of my life. Reading those accident reports was not fun, changed how I look at everything.

[Scribbler]

We lost an important and well respected major vet here a couple of years ago when a sedated horse fell on him. The vet lingered in hospital some weeks or maybe months putting on a brave face and then passed away without ever walking again. Not my vet and I was not privy to the details but absolutely horrifying.

My injuries have all been when I have been lax on common sense.

I do a bit of trimming on my own horse and I totally get wanting to sit on the floor rather than squat.

[KBC]

@Hightale

Stupid and lucky just about sums me up right now

Been there done that, not in the same way, but so many of us are stupid and lucky.

Jingling that you make a full recovery, and thanks for sharing your story.

I was watching last night, as very nice, sensible young lady, was hosing her beloved, well behaved gem of a mares shoulder…she’s wearing flip flops, and little kiddie is sat on horse….it’s either a pretty picture of tranquility and trust…or an accident waiting to happen.

[tikihorse]

I’m guilty of being complacent as we all are sometimes; thank you for the reminder. Jingles and prayers and gentle hugs that you make a full recovery. I had what the doctors referred to as a “minor concussion” after I fell down some stairs and hit my head on cement, resulting in some loss of speech. Scary stuff. We think we’re invincible until we are brought up short by something stupid like missing a step…

Sending you even more jingles, prayers, and gentle hugs.

[Jackie_Cochran]

I hope you heal rapidly.

I tend to be pretty paranoid around horses. I simply do not understand why some people take the risks they do around horses. If I was kneeling on the ground out in the paddock and one of my horses approached I GOT UP and stood. Sometimes it felt to me like the horse was jerking my chain, but better safe than sorry.

In my life I spent many hours under horses rasping their hooves. I never felt confident enough to kneel down. My paranoia here probably help prevent me from getting hurt by the horses.

I hope you heal up soon. That sounded really scary!

[quietann]

That sounds very unpleasant, and I hope that all of you - most especially your brain - heals well.

I needed the reminder, as I’ve been doing way too much with my retired mare loose in her paddock, as she’s 24, a real sweetheart for just about everything but trailering, and we are quite used to each other. I can tie her in her shed; I’ve just gotten sloppy.

[SuzieQNutter]

The saying for this is.

It is only experienced sailors who drown.

[trubandloki]

How scary! So glad you are healing well.
Jingles for a quick full recovery.

Thank you for the reminder.

[sophie]

Wow, that sounds like a horrendous experience! Glad you’re going to be OK. It could have been so much worse.
And yes, complacency is NOT our friend. I am at a barn with lots of kids, and that kind of keeps my complacency in check, as I want to give them good examples of how to act / be around horses.
But on my own, when I was younger, I certainly did some crazy stoopid things…

[RMJacobs]

I was astounded that my last farrier trimmed my mare’s back feet sitting on the ground with her hoof in his lap. She sure appreciated it as she had muscle damage that made lifting her back feet painful. She never kicked him and seemed to understand the effort he made to keep her comfortable. I just wouldn’t have done it and suggested it was a bad idea, but somehow he made it work. I think a lot of it was luck. All it would have taken is one fly at a bad time.

Rebecca