Rena’s love for horses started when she was young. She got her first horse when she was in the 7th grade, and they have been a part of her life ever since. She enjoys long trail rides and camping with her husband and their horses, but they also spend a lot of time with them in their arena. After they retired, they planned to do more trail riding and enjoy their horses for as long as physically possible.
After returning home from one of their long camping trips, she decided to ride her horse, Drover, for a short time in their arena. She had a flag out, which was just a standard flag on a piece of PVC pipe. It had fallen over, but looked like a good training opportunity for Drover. He was stepping over it just fine, but her husband’s horse, Webster, would not. Steve asked her to go over the flag one more time because his horse would likely follow them. Her horse made a wrong step, caught the pipe with his foot and broke it. The next thing Rena knew she was lying on the ground, face down in the opposite direction.
Rena’s husband said a piece of the pipe hit her horse in the face, he twirled, bolted and then suddenly stopped, and at that point, she flew off and hit the wooden fence. She immediately knew that she needed to see a doctor, her hand was black and swollen and her arm was incredibly painful. Once her husband got over to her, he realized my injuries were extensive. She thought she was in good enough shape for him to drive to the hospital and once she got there, the medical team worked together like clockwork.
Rena went straight to surgery where the hand surgeon repaired her injured hand, relocated her shoulder, cleaned the arm wound and stitched it up. She was in the hospital for three nights. She discovered that she also had a concussion, so the recovery was tough. The following week, she went to Cascade Surgicenter where the same surgeon repaired her shoulder. Her physical therapist didn’t have a lot of hope for her arm and hand, which should have been elevated to heal, but couldn’t because of her shoulder injury. “I’m 100% pleased with the outcome though, my doctor and therapist were the “dream team”. Because of their expertise, I am still doing two things that are very important to me — playing the piano and riding my horse.”
