Risk Management
Good news on the Charlie front - the vet was able to fix some problems with his teeth and thinks he's not on his last legs after all, only his second-to-last ones! She thought he was in very good condition for his age.
In less happy news, the chairman of the board of several of the companies I've prepared annual reports for became a paraplegic recently in a fall from a horse. He just hit the ground wrong and permanently damaged his spine. He's a successful lawyer, and someone who kept himself fit enough in his 50s to do active things like play polo, and should have had years ahead to enjoy the success he'd achieved. Now his whole life has changed dramatically because of a leisure activity that he didn't have to participate in. You could say that serious accidents aren't that common, but they aren't that rare, either: I know personally or through one degree of separation a woman who died when her horse accidentally stepped on her chest after she fell, a nine-year-old who was killed falling from a pony when the back of her head hit the arena fence just below her helmet, my client who tore her liver last year and would have bled to death if she'd done it in the more remote places I usually ride, and someone who's had extensive facial reconstructive surgery after getting a hoof in the face in a fall. When I mentioned this to bardiegrub, she sent me a link to a 7:30 Report program about a girl who was killed during a TAFE riding lesson. I myself have a scar and big dent in the muscle of my right calf from being kicked in a fall.
I try to cheer myself up with reseach that says that people who become paraplegics are generally no less happy a year after their accident than they were before (and people who win the lottery are no happier a year afterwards than they were before, either), but I really, really, really would not want to lose my independence due to a horse riding accident. I wouldn't even think of getting on a horse without a safety helmet, but that doesn't guarantee anything - all of the people above were wearing helmets. I was discussing this with my brother-in-law a while ago and he said the thing would worry him the most would be loss of sexual function. I thought that would be a small loss compared to losing the ability to get up and walk around, and get in the car and go where I want, and walk around once I got there. I don't like riding, or anything else, enough to risk that - except of course I do risk it all the time, every time I get in a car for starters!
People who aren't constantly afraid of permanent physical injury from risky activities confuse me. I don't understand whether they deliberately don't think about it, or whether they accept the risks in whatever activity they do with their eyes wide open and their insurance up to date, or whether they put faith in statistics that say it won't happen to most people, or whether they aren't worried because they don't think their lives would be any worse overall with a major permanent injury, only different. I'm pinning my hopes on the last one, but it definitely worries me a lot, much more so in relation to leisure activities like riding than "accepted risks of modern life" like driving.
In less happy news, the chairman of the board of several of the companies I've prepared annual reports for became a paraplegic recently in a fall from a horse. He just hit the ground wrong and permanently damaged his spine. He's a successful lawyer, and someone who kept himself fit enough in his 50s to do active things like play polo, and should have had years ahead to enjoy the success he'd achieved. Now his whole life has changed dramatically because of a leisure activity that he didn't have to participate in. You could say that serious accidents aren't that common, but they aren't that rare, either: I know personally or through one degree of separation a woman who died when her horse accidentally stepped on her chest after she fell, a nine-year-old who was killed falling from a pony when the back of her head hit the arena fence just below her helmet, my client who tore her liver last year and would have bled to death if she'd done it in the more remote places I usually ride, and someone who's had extensive facial reconstructive surgery after getting a hoof in the face in a fall. When I mentioned this to bardiegrub, she sent me a link to a 7:30 Report program about a girl who was killed during a TAFE riding lesson. I myself have a scar and big dent in the muscle of my right calf from being kicked in a fall.
I try to cheer myself up with reseach that says that people who become paraplegics are generally no less happy a year after their accident than they were before (and people who win the lottery are no happier a year afterwards than they were before, either), but I really, really, really would not want to lose my independence due to a horse riding accident. I wouldn't even think of getting on a horse without a safety helmet, but that doesn't guarantee anything - all of the people above were wearing helmets. I was discussing this with my brother-in-law a while ago and he said the thing would worry him the most would be loss of sexual function. I thought that would be a small loss compared to losing the ability to get up and walk around, and get in the car and go where I want, and walk around once I got there. I don't like riding, or anything else, enough to risk that - except of course I do risk it all the time, every time I get in a car for starters!
People who aren't constantly afraid of permanent physical injury from risky activities confuse me. I don't understand whether they deliberately don't think about it, or whether they accept the risks in whatever activity they do with their eyes wide open and their insurance up to date, or whether they put faith in statistics that say it won't happen to most people, or whether they aren't worried because they don't think their lives would be any worse overall with a major permanent injury, only different. I'm pinning my hopes on the last one, but it definitely worries me a lot, much more so in relation to leisure activities like riding than "accepted risks of modern life" like driving.