While tending to her horse, Kris tried to multitask with terrible consequences…
One by one, I led my three horses out to pasture.
‘C’mon boy,’ I said to Owen, leading him gently out of his stable.
While he was grazing, I realised the vet was running late.
He was supposed to be giving Owen his regular joint injections.
I wrapped Owen’s lead around my right wrist and used my free hand to get my phone.
After sending a message, I must have tripped.
Suddenly, I was on my stomach.
I glanced up at Owen and I recognised the look in his eyes.
Something had spooked him.
Oh no, I thought.
He bolted and I was being dragged through the pasture as he galloped.
After going over a drainage ditch, I blacked out.
I’m not ready to die
When I came to, there was blood all over me.
I wasn’t in pain but I was fading in and out of consciousness.
I couldn’t see my right arm, so I thought it was gone.
I’m not ready to die, I thought.
Thinking about my children, I mustered the determination to get to my front door.
There, I collapsed and my mum came running out, calling for an ambulance.
‘Mum, it’s starting to hurt,’ I mumbled.
An ambulance arrived within minutes.
‘You’re going to be OK,’ a paramedic told me.
Then, I blacked out again.
When I woke up, I was in hospital and a nurse was stitching up a gash on my head.
‘We’d like to try to reattach the rest of your hand,’ said a doctor.
‘What about my arm?’ I asked.
‘It’ll be OK,’ he replied.
The skin of my thumb, little finger and ring finger had been ripped off to the second knuckle, exposing the bones.
But the other fingers were completely gone.
I’d also broken my humerus and torn ligaments and tendons.
Because I was heavily sedated, it was hard to take it all in.
I decided against the reattachment, because it would involve a lot of surgeries with no guarantee of success.
Instead, I had to have seven minor amputations and a metal rod put into my humerus.
What was left of my hand had to be sewn into my abdomen to form a new blood supply.
Then a flap of skin could be created to go over the end of my wrist.
Two weeks later, I was discharged.
‘Are you OK, Mum?’ asked my daughter Hailey, 11, and my son Tyler, 12.
‘Yes, I’m sorry for scaring you,’ I replied.
I wore baggy T-shirts to hide the hand on my stomach and I was glad when it was removed three weeks later.
After the procedure, I tried to adjust to life with one arm.
Where it used to take me 10 minutes to get ready, it now took an hour.
Something as simple as putting my hair in a ponytail was impossible.
But when I got frustrated, I persevered.
I learnt how to use my armpit, bicep and elbow to hold things.
I quickly got back to riding my horses, holding the reins with my left hand.
What happened wasn’t Owen’s fault, so there was no way I was getting rid of him.
A year later, I was physically healed but mentally struggling.
‘You’ve lost a part of you, you’re going through a grieving process,’ said my therapist.
I was always right-handed, so as I practised trying to write with my left, I felt like a kid at school.
I tried using a prosthetic hand, but it wasn’t for me.
Time has passed and, now, I’ve finally learnt how to embrace my new look!
Kris Robinett, 51