A rider whose eyeball was sliced open and rotated by something kicked up by a horse cantering in front of her said she will always now wear goggles for such rides.
Doctors thought Helen Gordon must have been kicked in the face by a horse owing to the severity of the damage. But she and her horse were at a safe distance well behind the one in front when what she believes must have been a flint hit her.
“I just felt excruciating pain; I’ve never felt anything like it,” Helen told H&H. “I didn’t see it flying towards me but it went straight into my eye socket.”
Helen and her partner were on the gallops, for fittening work, last Thursday (19 September), and had just come off a flinty track when she felt the impact.
“It was a complete freak accident,” she said. “I knew something was majorly wrong but we had to hack back to the trailer park and get the horses sorted. What was really scary was when we got back, I had a look and my eyeball had rotated downwards and wouldn’t move. I thought that was it; I’d lost my eye or my sight.”
Helen, who had no vision on her left side, went straight to the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton.
(Image credit: creditUnknown)
“The eye doctor said I’m extremely lucky but insisted the horse must have kicked my eye because of the trauma to it,” she said. “This was not the case; the horse was at least five lengths in front.
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“The force sliced my eye open. The good news is the retina is still attached but it’s likely to be a slow recovery. They put anaesthetic straight into my eye to open it and look at it and I thought ‘Maybe I’m all right’. Then it started wearing off and definitely wasn’t all right! But the hospital was absolutely fantastic.”
Helen said the first thing she did when she got home was to order goggles for herself and her young son.
“I’ll never ride behind a cantering horse without eye protection again,” she said. “If this makes one person aware – if it had been my son Charlie, who’s 12, he could have lost his sight.
“He’s quite a thruster; gung-ho and doesn’t see danger but he got that this was bad. Yes it is, and it’s not going to happen to him! You expect to fall off or break bones, that comes with the territory, but this was such an obscure type of accident that I’d never have dreamed of.
“After this which I wouldn’t wish on anyone, I’ll eliminate the risk by wearing shatterproof goggles for canter work, as will my family.”
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Eleanor is an experienced journalist who spent over eight years working for local and national newspapers before joining H&H as news editor in March 2016. Passionate about equine welfare and exposing the truth, Eleanor has reported on all aspects of the industry, from Brexit to anti-bullying campaigns, and from dressage rules to mules. Her sport of choice is showjumping, in which she competes her own horses, and she also enjoys reporting at local jumping shows through to international championships.
