“Was Lying in Hospital”: Despite Cracked Ribs and Damaged Ligaments, 24-Year-Old Equestrian Achieves Stunning Feat for the Ages

On average, a thoroughbred horse is about 16 hands (64 inches, or 163 cm) tall and weighs a whopping 1,000 pounds, which is around 450 kg. Horses are a perfect sculpture of muscle mass that provides them with unbeatable strength. Although, this strength also means that when an equestrian gets hurt, they get injured in spades.

Alexa Palmer, an equestrian from Great Britain, has suffered this fate not once, but multiple times. She has been injured gravely enough to never want to get on a horse again. However, every time, she has dusted herself off and got back in the saddle.

The equestrian who doesn’t know how to quit

Last year, while riding a horse in an arena, the British equestrian suffered an unfortunate accident. According to a report by Horse & Hound, the 24-year-old said, “This horse decided he didn’t want me on board any more and I wasn’t going to stand a chance.” Palmer was bucked off by the mountain of muscle, and the impact hit her pretty hard. But she picked herself up and dismissed the accident like an everyday injury. However, she soon found out just how serious it was.

After some time had passed, Palmer realized that she was not able to keep her back straight. She was sent to the hospital when her pain had reached a point where she had to be heavily medicated. Tests revealed that Palmer had suffered severe trauma to her back, which resulted in six fractured vertebrae, two cracked ribs, and damage to the ligament from her neck to the middle of her back. The extent of the trauma ensured that she had to reluctantly spend time in the hospital under observation. Palmer recalled, “I was lying in hospital for three days, flat, not able to eat because they might operate on my back.”

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Luckily, it was decided by her doctors that she “was stable enough not to operate”, and all she got was a neck brace. But that was not the end of her ordeal. For a while, Alexa Palmer did not have the strength to even lift a measly water bottle, or properly hold a plate of food in her hands. The accident ensured that she was out of the saddle for three long months. Nonetheless, she returned and did so with a bang. On May 11 this year, Palmer made a stunning comeback by riding her horse to victory at the historical Aston-le-Walls.

She did it before, she’s done it again

Palmer’s victory is almost miraculous. She, however, has been there and done that. When Palmer was 20 years old, back in June 2018, she suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, when she fell from her gelding Ogue Caviar during a cross-country race. The rider had to be airlifted to the hospital, where her family was told that she might not make it. According to Horse & Hound, she was in and out of consciousness for multiple days and even got post-traumatic amnesia.

Quitting does not seem to be a part of Palmer’s DNA. So she got stronger and stronger every day and even took part in a drug trial at the hospital that greatly aided her recovery. Her injury was serious, and she had to face a 6 months hiatus from riding. But the equestrian returned to the saddle once again, when she participated in the British Dressage competition in January 2019, and won not only that competition but a few subsequent ones as well.

To get dangerously injured, both times and to still have the same passion for riding as before, simply proves the fact that Palmer is a born equestrian. An accident, or two, is never going to keep her from the saddle. Alexa Palmer, it seems, was born to ride.

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