On Thursday afternoon (30 Aug) Chris’ horse reacted severely to another horse in a fairly confined area. She flew off and landed on a solid galvanised pole fence before hitting the ground. It was tricky for the ambulance, but she was taken to Canberra Hospital (Woden) and admitted as a multi-trauma patient.
Chris has a severely broken right upper arm (humerus) and a crush fracture in her spine L3 lumbar vertebra. We are incredibly grateful that no nerve damage seems to have occurred. The spinal cord is OK and the nerve in her arm is still good, but this is a very unstable fracture. She still has a neck collar on for likely soft tissue injury. Her neck xray seems ok, but it will need further studies.
At this stage the orthopaedic team (arm) are awaiting decision of treatment by neurosurgery team (spine). The usual would be 6 weeks flat in bed, but they are looking at a brace and try her up next week. If she is to stay flat, it would be necessary to surgically fix the arm with pin/plate. If she can get upright, the hope is that gravity would be enough to straighten the bone in her arm and allow the ends to realign to heal.
Please pray for correct treatment and rapid healing with full recovery. We are so grateful that things are not worse.
With love,
Beth and Tom, Steve, Leah, Ruben
for Chris, Mark and Michelle
Joan
