American shortlisted WEG team rider Caroline Roffman injured herself in a riding accident on 12 November 2014, sustaining a head lasceration and severe bruising on the right side of her body after falling off a young horse.
At the end of a training sessions, Roffman tried to feed her horse a sugar cube, but as she leaned over to give it to him, the horse reversed and stepped through the wooden fence, causing him to panick and fall over. Roffman got squashed between the horse and the arena mirror. The glass shattered and her helmet got dislodged.
Roffman was able to quiet her horse in that crisis moment and probably prevented her pinned leg from fracturing. While the head wound was bleeding heavily, Caroline did not lose consciousness. She was airlifted to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach for treatment.
The head gash required 20 staples to close the wound. Roffman was released from the hospital the same day. The horse sustained a minor cut above his eye as well as an orbital bone fracture, but his vision is not impaired.
Roffman wrote that the accident "was a reminder that working with horses is dangerous and I can thank my lucky stars to just be bumped, cut, bruised and stapled."
Photo © Astrid Appels
Related Links
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