My Miracle

            I don’t recommend doing your own stunts.  It’s a bad idea.

            I think I was fifteen when my friend, Erin, and I decided to write a story together.  We were brainstorming for a specific scene.  We developed a brilliant escape plan, but it hinged upon one of the characters swinging off a horse at a gallop and clambering into a tree.

            “Is that even possible?”

            “I have horses.  Let’s experiment and find out.”

            I’d been told not to play around on horses before.  They’re big, they’re dangerous, and they’re for riding, not for playing.  But, really, what could possibly go wrong?  We were just going to ride them under a tree and grab a branch and swing off!

            My horses were old and steady creatures – kind and patient.  We rode them bareback most of the time, and such riding was perfect for our cause.  We chose a convenient branch on an oak tree near the barn, and began to set our horses to it.

            We rode under once or twice at a walk.  That was easy.  We tried a trot.  Success.  We surmised it was quite plausible for our character, a strong young man, to swing up off a galloping horse into the tree, and we decided to put the horses away.

            “Before we do, I’m going to try it at a canter,” I said.

            Erin nodded, and she hung back on Danny chatting with my sister while I set Moses toward the tree one last time.

            I dug my heels into his ribs and gripped with my knees.  He happily leaped from a walk into a canter – faster than I should have liked.  I’d forgotten he was barn sour and probably tired of this little game.  His pace quickened.  I let go the reins, lifted my hands and reached for the branch.

            Moses dashed from under me.  My palms and fingers gripped the tree, but my hands were not large enough to encircle the branch.  Physics kicked in.  My head and shoulders were stopped, but my legs kept moving with the horse…but the horse left…and my hands weren’t around the tree branch anymore.

            I felt myself falling.  But not just falling, I was also flipping.  My head went down, my feet went up.  A single, completely formed though flashed through my mind.  “If I land on my head, I’ll be dead.”

            Well.  I landed on my head.  I wasn’t dead.  I rolled across the grass, head over heels with the residual momentum of the horse, and as I rolled, I thought, again completely formed sentences.  “I’m not dead.  I wonder if I’m paralyzed.”

            Finally, I stopped rolling.  I lay on my back, and I felt my arms and legs twitching.  I could see my hands shaking as they hung in the air above my face.  My brother appeared by my side.

            “Where does it hurt? Where does it hurt?”

            I didn’t know.  Nothing hurt, really.  It was just…strange.

            “My neck,” I decided.

            He reached beneath my shoulders and knees and picked me up.

            I heard my mom screaming from the porch.  “PUT HER DOWN!  PUT HER DOWN!”

            They took me to the hospital where they X-rayed my neck.  They informed me I was fine and sent me home with some muscle relaxers and pain killers.  My chiropractor was disgusted with the hospital’s findings.  “Said you were alright?  Sent you home?  You broke your neck!”  He showed me the X-ray image.  “See that there?” he pointed.  “It’s a fracture, and a fracture in the neck is as good as a break.”

            As I sat stiffly in his office, staring straight ahead at the X-ray image, I reflected on how very blessed I was.  Unable to turn my head independently of my shoulders, I was grateful that I could still walk and use my arms.  Who knew how much motion I would recover in my neck?  I was told in the future I would probably have scar tissue and pain.  However, the facts stood: I wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t paralyzed, and regardless of what came in the future as a result of this accident, I would always be grateful for those two facts.