One fall too many

In September 2000, Nick suffered a fall that threatened to end his career, when he was told to give up riding permanently on the advice of leading neurosurgeons THAT September we went off to the Parkgate Show near Chester. The sun was shining, the ground was good and we were enjoying the day. I had jumped in one class and got a feel for the ring, which was a bit uneven, a bit hilly. The ring was on a bank so it wasn’t level. We got ready for the International Trial and in I went on Lalique (pictured).

We jumped the wall then turned back to a triple bar going uphill. It was fence six or seven I think and Lalique was jumping clear. The triple bar was quite wide and on approach I placed her a bit too close. As she took off I couldn’t push or help her, I had to sit still. I wasn’t worried as Lalique didn’t have a stop in her. She would usually go. She took off in front but obviously thought she couldn’t make the back rail, so she stopped and put back down again. Her front feet were over the front rail, she was in the middle of the fence […]

That old hunting saying “throw your heart over the fence and your horse will follow” is pretty much what I have always done. But as Lalique stopped I went up her neck and she put her head down. My hands were trapped underneath me, on the top of her head. At one point I suppose I was only eighteen inches off the floor. If she’d kept her head down I would have slid off safely. But she didn’t. She ran backwards and threw her head up, catapulting me into the air. All I can remember is landing right on the top of my head, with my full body weight following me down. There was no angle to the fall; I dropped vertically from five feet in the air.

As I landed I heard a loud crack, literally inside my head. A lady standing nearby heard it as well. And as my head hit the floor I dropped to one side, lying on my back, facing the sky, a few feet back from the fence. Whenever I fall, the first thing I do is to try and get up. But I just couldn’t move. All I could think of was the tremendous pain in the back of my head. I lay there motionless [...]

I was scared, really scared. I couldn’t move my arms and my legs, they were completely numb. The first aid team and the show doctor got to me and kept telling me to lie still because I kept trying to move, but I couldn’t move, not at all.

I didn’t lose consciousness but oh that pain in the back of my head. After a few minutes I could feel a tingling sensation in my fingers and my toes. A couple more minutes and I could actually move them. The feeling was coming back. After what felt like another few minutes, I could pick my arm up. Then I could move my legs. The fright ebbed away. What a relief. I wasn’t paralysed. I was going to be OK. But oh that pain in my head.

The only thing I couldn’t move was my head. I could not lift my head from the floor. I kept trying but it wouldn’t move.

An ambulance had been called and when the paramedics arrived they wanted to take my hat off. I can still remember shouting, ‘Don’t take my hat off!’ That couldn’t happen, the sensation in my head felt so weird I thought my head would fall off if they took my hat off. I told the paramedics that I thought I had broken my neck, or my back [...] They flew me to hospital [and] sure enough, it revealed I had broken my top vertebra, the C1, in two places. That explained why I couldn’t move.