How to Fall Off a Horse

In January 2003 Penny Woodworth who lives on Vancouver Island BC was taking a jumping lesson. Smallish jumps nothing exciting. My longtime error is looking down which I did that day. My horse stopped and I tumbled off. Not a bad fall at all except that I landed with one buttcheek on the ground pole. I got up and carried on but I was crooked and stayed that way. After a week or so still riding crooked and feeling shooting pains down my right leg I went for physiotherapy. I had dislocated my sacroiliac SI joint. Regular physio treatments and exercises finally got it to stay in place and I continued riding.

Later that summer I attended a horse show where my horse had had some bad experiences and he was freaked out. In retrospect we should have taken him home but we thought he would settle.  He didnt. In my first class he bolted and we crashed into a fence. I got back on and rode him for a while in the warmup ring but we gave up on the show. A couple of days later in a lesson he did a sudden violent sideways spook that dumped me once more but I mounted up and finished the lesson.
Fortyeight hours later I tried to put my boots on and could not bend down. I could not sit. Back to my physiotherapist who took one look at me and said Youve blown a disc. Whos your doctor? I went on rest and pain management for three months. At the end of that time it wasnt better. It was far worse. I couldnt work. I was in agony popping 50mg of morphine a day and could not sit or stand for more than about five minutes. A CT scan did indeed show