Another Chance to Ride

After years of helping patients with rehabilitation after injuries in her role as a physiotherapist, Lena found herself in the same position. She explains, “No one ever expects to have a serious accident, so when it happens it’s quite a shock.” 

As an experienced horse rider, Lena had been out with a friend enjoying a ride together on their horses, when her friend’s horse kicked out while cantering. Lena was struck on her leg and catapulted from the saddle in a bad fall.  She immediately knew she had a serious fracture and was initially taken to her local hospital.  Due to the severity of her injury, a shattered tibia, she was sent to King’s College Hospital for treatment. 

At King’s there was no option but to fit a Taylor Spatial Frame to help realign the multiple fractures of her tibia. The frame consisted of a number of pins and wires which were driven into the bone and attached to external metal rings.  These could be adjusted to realign the bone as it healed. The frame was fitted on December 31st and the following few weeks were taken with adjusting the struts of the frame to reposition and lengthen the fractured bone.  Lena’s husband was able to do the daily adjustment of the struts, which helped considerably.  Lena also needed to follow a rigorous cleaning and wound dressing regime to help prevent infection. 

On a normal day, Lena has a very active life.  She runs a busy livery yard, taking care of 14 horses, while working as a riding instructor and also providing occasional equine physiotherapy.  After the accident, she initially found it extremely hard to be still and rest.  Her broken leg and the frame itself meant that she had a physical barrier to work, and Lena found this very frustrating at first, but she was able to get extra support to help her continue running the yard.  It wasn’t long before she found a solution, working at a slower pace but still making a contribution.  Being in a muddy farmyard environment presented a challenge when wearing her frame.  Lena had to adapt by wrapping the frame in waterproof ski-suit fabric and she managed to find some baggy zipped trousers that she could pull over the frame to keep warm during the cold months of the winter.  

Lena had trained at King’s for her physiotherapy career so knew the hospital well. While working as a physiotherapist, she had specialised in neurological conditions and patients with brain injuries, often treating patients with PTSD.  This had given her a deep understanding of mental coping strategies, which she believes helped her enormously with her own injuries.  Working on the positive aspects of her situation was a key coping mechanism in this.  Lena explains that she would always challenge herself to turn negatives into positives, whatever the situation. 

After the initial shock and realisation that she couldn’t continue as normal and would have to slow down and adapt, she set about thinking of positive things that she could do in her situation.  Top of the list for her was catching up with people that she hadn’t seen for years.  This was something that she had been wanting to do but never had the time, and she found it really enjoyable and a distraction from her leg.  She would take time to plan their visit, even preparing meals and at a very slow pace, would keep up with housework.  Lena also found she had the time to read books and other things that she wouldn’t normally have time for.  

Lena was able to bare weight on her leg very soon after the accident and focused on her exercises.  She believes these were vital in her recovery and explains that her injured leg is now the stronger of the two.  She feels that her positive attitude towards recovery was also beneficial for her family and helped ease their worries, particularly when she faced the challenge of infections.  Despite having a careful cleaning routine, she unfortunately had a number of infections around the pin site and had to be treated with antibiotics.  By May, Lena had a bad infection which continued, despite antibiotics, and it was discovered that the pins of the frame were effectively coming out of her leg causing her to walk on the bone.  At this stage the frame was removed.  Because of the location of the fracture, she was unable to use a boot, so had to rely on crutches instead.   

For Lena, being able to ride again was a big milestone in her recovery and once her leg was strong enough, she began working towards riding.  She was conscious that her biomechanics may have been affected by the injury, so first booked sessions on a mechanical horse to work on this and check her balance.  Once she was confident she moved onto a horse and since this huge achievement has continued to enjoy riding again. 

Lena’s advice for anyone who finds themselves with a similar injury is simple, “Don’t panic!  Stay positive by doing exercises – anyone can do them.  Think about doing things that you don’t usually have time for and try to turn the negative into positive, no matter how small.”