So Im reading the Christopher reeves bio for school

[KateKat]

[QUOTE=MintHillFarm;7735744]

He was very tall, and his upper body was very long. It wouldn’t take much, if he did jump or lean ahead, to fall. An error which we have all done in years of riding. I am so sad for his family, his late wife and all his friends. It was a tragic accident…[/QUOTE]

As another person who, although not as tall as Reeve, but is top heavy with a super long torso I can attest to this. I fall WAY more often than my short torso’d counterparts as it truly is a balance/center of gravity thing. And if I do get ahead and a horse happens to stop, I would say 99% of the time I will come off.

[jen-s]

[QUOTE=KateKat;7735898]
As another person who, although not as tall as Reeve, but is top heavy with a super long torso I can attest to this. I fall WAY more often than my short torso’d counterparts as it truly is a balance/center of gravity thing. And if I do get ahead and a horse happens to stop, I would say 99% of the time I will come off.[/QUOTE]

And as someone with short legs and a really large bust, this conformation is also problematic. Alas, there are many shapes and sizes that make riding effectively a bit more challenging. CR was very athletic though, which likely helped him out over some of the rest of us. His accident was horribly tragic and much of the hearsay on this thread is unbecoming to the posters.

[Janet]

[QUOTE=McGurk;7735308]
…
It was a simple, inviting fence, not near the maximum height, included in the Novice course as well, and as someone else mentioned, jumped hundreds of time in competition without causing a fall.[/QUOTE]

Not only had it never caused a fall, it had never even had a single refusal.

I was the organizer of the Spring HT from when CDCTA took it over from Seneca Valley PC, to a year or two before this incident, and attended every CDCTA HT at Commonwealth Park.

[Jealoushe]

[QUOTE=findeight;7735759]
You know, you cannot always teach riders how to fall “correctly”, especially from an unexpected stop out of a good gallop. It’s no guarantee of protection from injury and there is no way to fall " correctly" if you do get suddenly stopped off head first.

Personally seen GP riders in that situation grab at the neck and get the crownpiece taking the bridle with them as they summersault off. Not that rare.

By all means teach the tuck and roll but don’t promise it will keep them from ever getting hurt. 45 years riding and only one serious injury for me, I had one spin, bolt and buck me off over THE BACK of them, getting caught by a back hoof on the way down. Cracked a shoulder, no way to defend against that kind of thing but it happens that way sometimes.[/QUOTE]

I think that is assumed…but it does help. I’m not in any way saying this was preventable…but teaching a proper fall does have value.

[Calamber]

[QUOTE=MAD;7734792]
Chris kept Buck at my family’s farm the winter before his accident because we have an indoor and because of his desire to work with a jumping coach for a few months. I watched him school many times, so I am not relying on gossip I heard from someone I once worked with. Buck was not a “notorious dirty stopper” and Chris was a confident, passionate rider and horseman. His accident was an accident.[/QUOTE]

This was not gossip, this was from a woman who managed Fox Chase Farms at the time. She was not only not prone to gossip, I never heard her talk about anything that she did not see first hand.

[Zuri]

[QUOTE=rcloisonne;7735301]
No, it was C3. Back in the 70’s, when I took Human Anatomy in college, I was told a break at C3 (and above) is a fatal injury as the nerves that innervate the diaphragm are at C3. The diaphragm controls breathing in mammals. This is why they could never get CR off the ventilator completely.

Obviously, some advances have been made since the 70’s since they were able to keep CR alive for many years. However, while I greatly admire his courage and tenacity in the face of such an overwhelming and irrevocable injury, I would not have wanted to be kept alive under those circumstances.[/QUOTE]

According to the chief neurosurgeon at UVA at the time of CR accident, the spinal fractures were C1 and C2. A rod was inserted to stabilize the fracture. http://www.chrisreevehomepage.com/n-1995.html

[McGurk]

A very long time ago, when I was a young aspiring professional, I rode for a local big name (I am going to be vague and change some details to protect the guilty.;-)); was riding a horse with a questionable reputation and had a bad wreck.

Bad in this case = helicopter ride to a level 1 trauma center, head injury and multiple broken bones. Quite the local sensation for a while.

I was young, tough, stupid, lucky and quick to heal, so I was back on a horse at 5 weeks, and back at work full time at 9.

Shortly after that, while out riding, I ran across my employer’s neighbor who introduced herself. I introduced myself and told her who I worked for/whose horse I was riding. Her reaction was priceless. She told me to be careful, that the last girl who had worked for that farm had been badly hurt, etc. She went on at some length about how horrible the accident had been, but getting many of the pertinent details wrong. I tried to interrupt, telling her, yes, I know, it was me, I’m the girl who had the accident, but that wasn’t how it happened at all. At one point the neighbor told me it couldn’t possibly have been me, the girl who had the accident had been too badly hurt…I think I showed her the protective brace I was still wearing as a result, but it didn’t matter.

The story or myth had become bigger than the truth, so big, that there wasn’t even room left for the truth next to it. This nice woman looked me in the eye and told me that she knew better what had happened to me than I did. Well, not me, in her mind, because I wasn’t the girl who had the accident.

So it goes with the Chris Reeve story. People would much rather believe a melodramatic story than a plain truth, and over time, with repetition, the melodramatic story carries the weight of fact. Particularly when the plain truth is some version of “Manure happens” or “Bad manure happens to good people.”

Thanks again to Phoenix and some of the other posters who have tried to reintroduce some plain truth to the legend. Keep fighting the good fight.

[wendyfisher]

Jeez,what happened?

[QUOTE=McGurk;7736583]
A very long time ago, when I was a young aspiring professional, I rode for a local big name (I am going to be vague and change some details to protect the guilty.;-)); was riding a horse with a questionable reputation and had a bad wreck.

Bad in this case = helicopter ride to a level 1 trauma center, head injury and multiple broken bones. Quite the local sensation for a while.

I was young, tough, stupid, lucky and quick to heal, so I was back on a horse at 5 weeks, and back at work full time at 9.

Shortly after that, while out riding, I ran across my employer’s neighbor who introduced herself. I introduced myself and told her who I worked for/whose horse I was riding. Her reaction was priceless. She told me to be careful, that the last girl who had worked for that farm had been badly hurt, etc. She went on at some length about how horrible the accident had been, but getting many of the pertinent details wrong. I tried to interrupt, telling her, yes, I know, it was me, I’m the girl who had the accident, but that wasn’t how it happened at all. At one point the neighbor told me it couldn’t possibly have been me, the girl who had the accident had been too badly hurt…I think I showed her the protective brace I was still wearing as a result, but it didn’t matter.

The story or myth had become bigger than the truth, so big, that there wasn’t even room left for the truth next to it. This nice woman looked me in the eye and told me that she knew better what had happened to me than I did. Well, not me, in her mind, because I wasn’t the girl who had the accident.

So it goes with the Chris Reeve story. People would much rather believe a melodramatic story than a plain truth, and over time, with repitition, the melodramatic story carries the weight of fact. Particularly when the plain truth is some version of “Manure happens” or “Bad manure happens to good people.”

Thanks again to Phoenix and some of the other posters who have tried to reintroduce some plain truth to the legend. Keep fighting the good fight.[/QUOTE]