rockits
MB Enthusiast
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- Dec 31, 2009
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- 2005 E55K Estate; 2020 Jaguar I-Pace HSE;2004 E500 Estate;2005 Alfa GT V6;306GTi-6;206 GTi 180
I thought a few of you might have an opinion or advice around this one so much appreciated if anyone could help us a little.
My daughter has been going to horse riding lessons since about October last year so would have been 5 1/2 years old then. She is 6 in May. I have to be honest it wasn't something I was massively involved in as to what/where she went etc. as my wife sorted all this out. I have been through all my bad parent personal interrogation a zillion times already so I am not happy with myself to start with! if I had this time again I would make sure I was more involved. I have been often working on the Saturday half to 3/4 days for the last 6 months also with jobs around the house to do so never went to see her.
I went for the first time this Saturday just passed. Not sure if I was the bad omen or maybe it was lucky I was there but an incident took place that morning that is the kind of thing that changes things/people forever. I am sure parents on her will have experienced similar and can understand and empathise but it is a parents worst nightmare. About 20 mins into a 30 min lesson the horse bolted and my tiny little girl could not hold on/lost her balanced and fell from the horse. She fell under and it seems a flailing hoof has kicked her in the mouth/face/nose. She was wearing a new riding hat we bought her and luckily wasn't not unconscious or sustainained any further or more serious injuries or worse! Not that we know of at this stage anyway. The medium to long term issues are unknown at this stage.
Don't get me wrong she has not got away lightly and has been through a very serious traumatic experience. Also sustaining a very very nasty blow to her face. We are not sure if the initial work/procedure/stitches is it or that there will be further work/procesdures required at any point in the future at this stage. Her face is still badly swollen, she cannot eat, it seems there is a fracture or several to her nose and/or cheek bones. The injury is quite severe.
The riding school weren't great in my opinion in dealing with the incident as best as it could have been for several reasons. I jumped over the fence and went to her and comforted her trying to ascertain if there was anything further than the obvious initial facial injuries. We immediately phoned for an ambulance on our mobile and the emergency services weren't much cop either. Couldn't tell us if an ambulance had been sent or how long it might roughly take to arrive. Having visions that it could be much longer than it could take us to drive to Barnet Hospital only 15 mins away we took the decisions to rush her to hospital ourselves.
The hospital were massively busy but luckily we managed to get her a room on here own. She was given an initial inspection but as the surgeons had just scrubbed up to enter into surgery we were told we would need to wait an hour for them to come down to look at here. This actually became 2 hours then nearly 3 hours. A junior Maxillofacial specialist then came down and gave us an option of general anaesthetic followed by an operation or local anaesthetic with local/immediate stitches. She had half her lower lip cut through completely but it was still partially attached so seemed best to go with a local anaesthetic with immediate stitches. This was completed but unfortunately there was still quite a lot of bleeding. We discovered at this point that there was an further worse injury to the inside upper gum/lip. Needed more local anaesthetic and a lot more stitches! My little girl was extremely brave as the needle with local anaesthetic injected in was really hard to watch and have been very painful for her. We thought it was the best thing given the information we had at the time.
I have lots of questions. Firstly to myself for not preventing this happening or not allowing it to be a potential issue for various reasons. Secondly with the riding school. She was for at least 50% of the lesson on her own riding the horse with no teacher holding the reigns at all and allowed to trot unaided and even canter it seems at some point. Forgive me I am really not a horsey person at all and know nothing! I just found it strange that a 5 year old would not be riding a horse with a teacher holding the reigns at all times.
Is it normal or acceptable that this should have happened? In my opinion she is not big enough or experienced enough or in any control whatsoever to be in control of a horse without assistance or constant hold of the reigns by a teacher. Opinions?
Also the horse she was riding didn't seem happy to me (again I am not a horsey person!) but the other 3 horses in the area in the lessons seemed fine to me. It had been doing a few weird things in a previous lesson as we turned up early. Also it was dribbling lots from its mouth. Didn't seem right to me.
My immediate attention has been making sure my daughter is OK and have taken full time time out of work to help deal with this. I pay a decent amount for BUPA cover for all of us and we arranged and saw a specialist at Northwick Park Hospital on Monday. Followed by a second appt with a 2nd specialist on Harley Street today. Now I have started collating the dates/times/details to date. I want to make sure that if there are any issues, responsibility or negligence with the Riding School that this is dealt with. I couldn't live with myself if another child experience a similar incident due to this.
Should we involve the police and report the incident? Is there a governing body or regulator in the this environment to investigate and make sure there are no issues? I am not one of these litigation types but it has caused quite some amount of cost and time for us to deal with this. I am not really bothered about this or the money but need to decide what we should do about it and what our responsibilities and actions should be.
Any thoughts, advice or help? Much appreciated as I am not well versed in this kind of thing....luckily!
My daughter has been going to horse riding lessons since about October last year so would have been 5 1/2 years old then. She is 6 in May. I have to be honest it wasn't something I was massively involved in as to what/where she went etc. as my wife sorted all this out. I have been through all my bad parent personal interrogation a zillion times already so I am not happy with myself to start with! if I had this time again I would make sure I was more involved. I have been often working on the Saturday half to 3/4 days for the last 6 months also with jobs around the house to do so never went to see her.
I went for the first time this Saturday just passed. Not sure if I was the bad omen or maybe it was lucky I was there but an incident took place that morning that is the kind of thing that changes things/people forever. I am sure parents on her will have experienced similar and can understand and empathise but it is a parents worst nightmare. About 20 mins into a 30 min lesson the horse bolted and my tiny little girl could not hold on/lost her balanced and fell from the horse. She fell under and it seems a flailing hoof has kicked her in the mouth/face/nose. She was wearing a new riding hat we bought her and luckily wasn't not unconscious or sustainained any further or more serious injuries or worse! Not that we know of at this stage anyway. The medium to long term issues are unknown at this stage.
Don't get me wrong she has not got away lightly and has been through a very serious traumatic experience. Also sustaining a very very nasty blow to her face. We are not sure if the initial work/procedure/stitches is it or that there will be further work/procesdures required at any point in the future at this stage. Her face is still badly swollen, she cannot eat, it seems there is a fracture or several to her nose and/or cheek bones. The injury is quite severe.
The riding school weren't great in my opinion in dealing with the incident as best as it could have been for several reasons. I jumped over the fence and went to her and comforted her trying to ascertain if there was anything further than the obvious initial facial injuries. We immediately phoned for an ambulance on our mobile and the emergency services weren't much cop either. Couldn't tell us if an ambulance had been sent or how long it might roughly take to arrive. Having visions that it could be much longer than it could take us to drive to Barnet Hospital only 15 mins away we took the decisions to rush her to hospital ourselves.
The hospital were massively busy but luckily we managed to get her a room on here own. She was given an initial inspection but as the surgeons had just scrubbed up to enter into surgery we were told we would need to wait an hour for them to come down to look at here. This actually became 2 hours then nearly 3 hours. A junior Maxillofacial specialist then came down and gave us an option of general anaesthetic followed by an operation or local anaesthetic with local/immediate stitches. She had half her lower lip cut through completely but it was still partially attached so seemed best to go with a local anaesthetic with immediate stitches. This was completed but unfortunately there was still quite a lot of bleeding. We discovered at this point that there was an further worse injury to the inside upper gum/lip. Needed more local anaesthetic and a lot more stitches! My little girl was extremely brave as the needle with local anaesthetic injected in was really hard to watch and have been very painful for her. We thought it was the best thing given the information we had at the time.
I have lots of questions. Firstly to myself for not preventing this happening or not allowing it to be a potential issue for various reasons. Secondly with the riding school. She was for at least 50% of the lesson on her own riding the horse with no teacher holding the reigns at all and allowed to trot unaided and even canter it seems at some point. Forgive me I am really not a horsey person at all and know nothing! I just found it strange that a 5 year old would not be riding a horse with a teacher holding the reigns at all times.
Is it normal or acceptable that this should have happened? In my opinion she is not big enough or experienced enough or in any control whatsoever to be in control of a horse without assistance or constant hold of the reigns by a teacher. Opinions?
Also the horse she was riding didn't seem happy to me (again I am not a horsey person!) but the other 3 horses in the area in the lessons seemed fine to me. It had been doing a few weird things in a previous lesson as we turned up early. Also it was dribbling lots from its mouth. Didn't seem right to me.
My immediate attention has been making sure my daughter is OK and have taken full time time out of work to help deal with this. I pay a decent amount for BUPA cover for all of us and we arranged and saw a specialist at Northwick Park Hospital on Monday. Followed by a second appt with a 2nd specialist on Harley Street today. Now I have started collating the dates/times/details to date. I want to make sure that if there are any issues, responsibility or negligence with the Riding School that this is dealt with. I couldn't live with myself if another child experience a similar incident due to this.
Should we involve the police and report the incident? Is there a governing body or regulator in the this environment to investigate and make sure there are no issues? I am not one of these litigation types but it has caused quite some amount of cost and time for us to deal with this. I am not really bothered about this or the money but need to decide what we should do about it and what our responsibilities and actions should be.
Any thoughts, advice or help? Much appreciated as I am not well versed in this kind of thing....luckily!