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>This time, when I saw my horse's head and neck disappear
>under his front, my first reaction was to throw my hands out in front of
>me, but on the way down, I realized I might break my wrists if I
>braced. (You really DO have time to think a little during these
>incidents!) Instead, I used my arms just to break the fall a little bit
>and tucked my chin and that made me roll forward and out of Jakar's
>way. I ended up about 15 feet in front of him and bounced right up to
>my feet. =20
The reason that broken wrists and forearms are a common result from
falls it our natural instinct to put our arms out in front to
"protect" ourselves. Nikki did it the right way.
In a fall, once you know you cannot recover and are going to the
ground, you want to tuck your head and arms to your chest and try to
land on a shoulder, rolling as you hit the ground. This prevents
taking full force on a fragile wrist or forearm bone, takes the impact
on strong muscle mass, and the rolling decelerates you more gradually
so that the impact forces are less. Also, as Nikki observed, rolling
decreases the chance that the horse will fall on you.
The worst injury I've had from a fall in ten years is rope burn on my
fingers from braided reins being pulled out of my hand (another good
reason for using biothane!).
--=20
Joe Long
jlong@mti.net
Business Page http://www.mti.net
Personal Page http://www.rnbw.com
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