How to EASILY avoid this horrific horse accident
We’re sorry to have to bring up such a graphic topic, however the injuries are so severe, and statistics increasing, that the Society will be bringing in a mandatory rule change in 2017.
This is a FULLY PREVENTABLE injury. Please do not read further if you feel you might be at risk of being upset by graphic photos and information.
150,000 mutilated with this horrific injury every year in the USA
In 2008 it was reported in a major orthopedic journal as a “RARE injury”. However this has now increased to a shocking 150,000 highly debilitating injuries in the USA every year.
In addition, as we are nearly always in remote areas on farms, the case of an injury on a farm, blood loss, shock and exposure could easily lead to further complications or death.
Talk Show Host Celebrity Injured
Famous celebrity talk show host Jimmy Fallon was recently shown on his show with the horrific injury so common with horse riders and on farms. This is where a finger, often with a ring, and certainly without gloves is horrifically ripped out of the rider’s hand and amputated – with 5% of the injuries so violent and severe it involves the entire upper arm! See GRAPHIC WARNING: Jimmy Fallon – Talk Show Celebrity Inured
These injuries where the fingers are almost certainly amputated are called “finger avulsion injuries”. This could be a life-threatening situation, which is why gloves are MANDATORY in dressage. If a pupil needs convincing…here is HIGHLY GRAPHIC PHOTOS & ARTICLE
LEGAL RISK: Coach not warning pupils
Because these injuries – are now so common – and a life-threatening situation if the injury happens away from medical care and in addition the FEI RULES say “gloves are mandatory under the penalty of elimination”, then it leaves you, as a coach, highly open to serious law-suit. If the person loses a finger, they cannot type properly, text properly, play a musical instrument, so the loss is indeed great, and they will come after you, the coach financially to pay their medical, rehabilitation and surgery bills, and loss of wages perhaps for years to come. If they lose their hand, their arm, or their life, from your failure to warn them, and failure to insist on gloves, then law suit is inevitable.
There are more HIGHLY GRAPHIC PHOTOS here if your pupils will not listen, or you believe, as a coach, you are not negligent by ignoring the warnings.
2017 Official Rule Change
Gloves have always been mandatory while riding, under penalty of elimination, in accordance with the FEI Dressage Rules where the ancient military schools obviously realised this was a “life and death” situation and saw the dangers long ago.
They prevent rein-burn, give better control in emergencies, help prevent lunge rein-burn, and especially, the much worse, situation a rein or rope wrapping around a finger or hand and either de-gloving the finger or hand, or tearing it out, amputating the finger, and perhaps even the entire arm altogether.
Therefore it was agreed at last week’s ISRB Board Meeting that in 2017 the rules of the training will be changing to:
“Gloves are mandatory while riding & handling horses. Gloves are also mandatory at any and all times, at the farm, arena or venue if a rider is wearing a ring or rings due to the dangers of ring avulsion amputation injury”.
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