Interview
The Yorkshire-based vet suffered a life-threatening hand injury just weeks before her horse, Flash, shredded a ligament in his stifle in a freak field accident. Julie Harding finds out about Katie and Flash’s long road to recovery
How Katie Brickman and her horse Flash battled through injury together and came out the other side
VET KATIE BRICKMAN was about to curry favour with a client. Having assessed a horse, she offered to return with its medication — a box of pills and a bottle of antibiotics. Oblivious that her kind act was about to throw her life into turmoil as well as threaten her career, her competitive schedule and her life, Katie walked confidently into the yard, strode across an area of concrete and through a door. It was at this point that she slipped. Her right foot went forwards, but the rest of her frame went backwards. Automatic reactions kicked in. Her hands darted behind her, and the right one found that the pill box cushioned the jolt of meeting the floor. The left, though, met the newly shattered glass of the antibiotic bottle, and a huge shard sliced effortlessly into her palm. Yard staff ran from all directions. A poultice was placed on her hand, which, since Katie had pulled out the shard, was now gushing blood. A tail bandage was used as a tourniquet on her arm in an attempt to stem the flow.
“All I could think of was that it was Friday, and on Sunday I was supposed to be eventing,” says Katie.
Oblivious to the devastation she had wreaked in her hand at that point, in the split second it had taken for Katie to make contact with terra firma and the broken glass, she had severed tendons in six places, together with myriad nerves and small blood vessels. The next morning at Hull Royal Infirmary when the surgeon, James Haeney, asked her to move her little, middle and ring fingers, they remained stock still.
“That was one of the worst things,” says the Welburn, North Yorkshire-based vet. “Absolutely nothing happened.”
A two-hour operation lasted three times longer than planned.
“As I had soft tissue damage, they weren’t able to image it and so they were operating blind,” Katie explains. “What they didn’t realise initially was that the glass had also shattered inside my hand and had severed an artery, too. I was later told that I’d been lucky and that I’d survived because the blood had had to travel down my hand to exit via the wound in my palm, rather than straight from my wrist if I’d sliced into that. I still lost a lot of blood, though, which is why they struggled to put in a catheter as I was about to be anaesthetised.”
The bandages came off two weeks later, giving Katie the first view of her scar. “It was a real mess — a question mark shape that ran across my palm and up towards my wrist. My brother said that it looked like something from Halloween!” However, cosmetic considerations weren’t high on Katie’s priority list. It was the future of her job — as a veterinary surgeon for York-based Minster Equine Practice — and being able to ride her three horses that led to nights of fitful sleep.
“I rode again at the end of May, 14 weeks after the accident, which the hospital said was too soon, but by then I was climbing the walls,” says Katie, who had returned to work after eight weeks, initially to care for orthopaedic and lameness cases in the veterinary clinic.
“I didn’t find it difficult to hold the
“It was a real mess — a question mark shape that ran across my palm and up towards my wrist. My brother said that it looked like something from Halloween!”
reins because I’d been working on gripping in physio sessions, but I was worried about what would happen if a horse pulled — would I be able to hold it? But I never felt like I was in trouble. Because I was distracted by the process of riding, too, it didn’t feel painful
— it took my mind off all that.”
Following a second operation to remove scar tissue inside her wound, Katie’s hand — and her job — eventually returned to normal, but although she may have been cured, barring a slight perpetual kink in her little finger, her eventer Flash (competition name Black Jack V) was about to sign on to the sick list.
No one saw the moment the 16.1hh Irish Sport Horse crippled himself in the field.
“It happened two months after I was injured,” says Katie. “He was event fit, but when I had my accident, rather than getting anyone else to ride him as he’s quirky, I turned him away. I think he got bored and galloped around his paddock like an idiot and hyper-extended his stifle.
“There was no obvious swelling, even though he was on three legs, so I put him on box rest for a couple of weeks and then nerve blocked him, but it made no difference.”
A trip to the Rainbow Equine Hospital in Malton for an appointment with lauded imaging specialist Jonathon Dixon revealed (on a bone scan) that Flash’s middle patella ligament was entirely shredded.
“The vets said that they didn’t know if there was anything they could do, and they recommended euthanasia,” says Katie. “But I wanted to try to save him, so I took Flash home and decided to throw the kitchen sink at him. I injected stem cells into his ligament and gave him shockwave therapy and total box rest for a year [see page 19].
“I expected him to lose the plot while on box rest, but for such a characterful horse — he’d come from Ireland, and had been really nervous — he was so good. I would do crazy things for him, too, like stopping the car when I was out and about to pick him some grass. My fiancé, Rob, thought I’d lost the plot!” After a year, a scan showed that Flash’s ligament had hardened and the inflammation in the surrounding joint had subsided. The 10-year-old gelding had made a miracle recovery.
“Jonathon still says that he can’t believe how well Flash has recovered,” says Katie. “But I’ve increased his work very slowly. Every time we try something new I wonder if it will cause problems, but so far, so good.” Back in the competitive fray, Flash finished second on his first BE80(T) run at Speetley, and followed that up with four affiliated red rosettes in the same season at BE80(T) and BE90 level.
“It was an emotional high after such lows,” says Katie, a winner at the British Riding Clubs Championship, who subsequently nabbed a qualification ticket to Badminton’s Science Supplements Cup (formerly Grassroots Championships).
Horse obsessed from an early age, Katie bought her first (less than suitable and rather nervous) pony when she was nine.
“I’d saved my pocket money for five years to get one,” she laughs.
Other equines followed, including Tilly, who she evented. “We competed up to novice level and then I went away to university. Tilly had problems with her hocks, so I put her in foal,” explains Katie.
The resulting offspring is a big-moving five-year-old called Millie who will commence her eventing campaign this season (Covid-19 permitting).
As well as having Flash for a stablemate, Millie also rubs shoulders with Mary (aka Etasja), a 16.2hh, 11-year-old warmblood mare. While following her childhood dream and becoming a vet — “before GCSEs, my teachers told me that I wasn’t clever enough” — Katie occasionally develops a penchant for a patient while out on call, Mary being a case in point.
“Mary only learned to jump when she was eight and she’s a fantastic showjumper, tackling 1.10m BSJA tracks. Across country she isn’t so confident, which is why we’re sticking to BE90 at the moment.”
Like all competitive riders, Katie is keen to get back to the sporting melee, but in the meantime she contents herself with schooling and some safe off-road hacking. “The livery yard [KR Equestrian, owned and run by Katie’s friend Kim Richards] has stayed open. Owners can go at allocated
“The vets said that they didn’t know if there was anything they could do for Flash, and they recommended euthanasia. But I wanted to try to save him, so I took him home and decided to throw the kitchen sink at him. I injected stem cells into his ligament and gave him shockwave therapy and total box rest for a year”
times, with a maximum of three of us on the yard at once. I mainly do work in the school, but the yard is also close to a private track, so we can still walk out, but we don’t go on the roads. I usually ride a lot with my mum, Rachel, but I’ve not seen her for a month. Mum, Dad [Ian] and Rob were all brilliantly supportive through all my traumas, and I don’t think even now that I fully appreciate the horror they went through when they were told that they nearly lost me.”
When the sporting circuits eventually crank up again, Katie, who recently gained sponsorship from Foster Equestrian, plans to enjoy some pipe-opening runs in preparation for the 2021 Science Supplements Cup.
Should they finish in the frame, it will be grassroots eventing’s version of Bob Champion and Aldiniti, winners of that iconic 1981 Grand National and also almost consigned to the scrapheap of sport because of illness (cancer/Bob) and injury (tendon issues and a fractured hock bone/Aldiniti). “I simply can’t wait for Badminton to happen,” says Katie. “It’s been my lifetime’s dream to ride there.”