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[RC] Unabashed plug for helmets - heidi

I dashed home from the Owyhee 100 yesterday to pick up hubby and horses to
go back to Oreana today for the Owyhee Canyonlands Multiday.  I arrived
home at dusk, and we still needed to do the pre-ride "warm-up-cool-down"
ride on our guys.  We rode off on a short, familiar loop, and were doing
fine--and in fact, were walking the last bit of it home, within sight of
our own barnyard lights in the dark, when both horses spooked at something
that scuttled out from the shade of a sagebrush.  It was a mild spook--but
I had not tightened my girth as much as usual, and my saddle
turned--otherwise, I'd've been fine.  As it was, I thought I had "planned"
my dismount to some degree--and in fact, apparently lit on my elbows and
somewhat curled up.  What I COULDN'T control was the fact that my horse
swung back over the top of me in the dark, and apparently clouted the back
of my head with a hoof.  I did lose consciousness briefly, and had some
short-term memory loss for about 10-15 minutes (as well as MAJOR vertigo
when I first tried to get up)--but am otherwise in one piece.  I have a
sore TMJ--likely from tweaking my jaw on the ground when my head got
drilled--but that will heal.  I did not know that my helmet was shattered
until I got back to the barnyard and took it off.

As I sit here at my desk this morning, getting ready to go to town to get
a new one before we depart for Owyhee Canyonlands, I am looking at my
shattered helmet and thanking God that it is not my head that looks like
that.  I am one of those riders who grew up not wearing a helmet, and who
was not among the first to start doing so.  When I finally started wearing
one, I always thought that the life that I might save by doing so would be
someone else's by the example that I set, rather than my own.  I was
wrong.  And thanks to my helmet, I'm still here to talk about it (and
headed to a ride!), instead of in the ER, or worse.

Heidi



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