Traumatic Brain Injury Handbook by Joseph B. Healy

Author:Joseph B. Healy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2016-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

7

BRAIN INJURY SURVIVOR STORIES

Sue Shirland, 68 (as of August 2015)

Hometown: Colchester, Vermont

Accident: Trauma in 1990, following a fall off a horse

Sue Shirland is a longtime equestrian (with honors ranging from Horse of the Year at first or second level to National Ranking at the top level, Grand Prix). She owns Down East Farms in Colchester, Vermont. She rides horses and instructs riders.

“In 1990, I went to Florida to compete in dressage to try to make the world-championship team. I really didn’t expect to make the team, it was my first time giving it a go. I was long-listed for the Olympic team, in 1989, so it was reasonable for me to compete. I wasn’t Tiger Woods, but I could play the game. In Florida, I went to one competition and I won the Grand Prix. We were staying in our motor home on a private farm with the horses,” Sue said. She and her husband, Larry, on sabbatical leave from the Business School at the University of Vermont in Burlington, had made the trip to Florida so Sue could compete at the top level of dressage. Dressage is an Olympic sport, and at that time the next Summer Olympiad was 1992 in Barcelona, Spain. A spot on the World Championship team at that time meant the possibility of Olympic competition.

She doesn’t remember the accident, a condition that’s not uncommon when brain injury is the outcome. “I was not there when it happened. What I’m told is that I was riding my horse in an outdoor arena. One of the things my horse did best was rein back; he did that beautifully. Apparently, I was doing that and he got his feet tangled up in the sugar sand and he fell, and I guess he fell on me. I don’t remember any of this. I don’t remember riding that day, or anything,” Sue tells me. Sugar sand is the ultra fine-grained sand found primarily on beaches in Florida and parts of the Atlantic Coast and is difficult for people to walk in, much less a hooved and horseshoe-shod, thousand-pound or more horse to trod in. The fact that sugar sand was on the ground of the outdoor arena in Florida was simply bad luck.

“Ande, my groom, was talking to me and something happened and I went quiet and the horse got up and ran away. After that, I’m told she said something to me and there was no response, so she shook me. My breathing pattern changed and became very stressed. Then she remembered you weren’t supposed to move someone with an injury; she thought she killed me.”

People in attendance called 911 and a helicopter landed across the street. Sue said she was wearing her competition clothes, including a new pair of riding boots that the EMTs cut off her feet—“which I think was a way to find out if I was really unconscious,” she said with a laugh. “Although there wasn’t any physical sign of injury, I remained unconscious.” She went to the hospital in the helicopter.

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