I had been riding practically all my life... that's why it never crossed my mind to put on a helmet... and I was only going to be on this horse for a moment or so I thought... But I was wrong... almost dead wrong. It happened on a Saturday... September 13th 1979, I was only ten years old... My brother and I were at the barn, when I saw this horse just standing in the barn. Ijust felt this need to get on it... When I did he got scared at this manure spreader and I went flying off, my head hitting the manure spreader. I was rushed to the hospital where this neurosurgeon did some relief surgery, releasing a lot of the fluid on my brain. I went into a coma. My doctor said "If she does wake up, I am going to try to put her ribs in her head, there'll be less chance of rejection that way... I did wake up three and a half months later on Christmas Morning so my doctor did what he had promised and put my ribs in there. i went to a rehabiliatation hospital. Boy oh boy did that hurt: I had to undergo nine months of relearning how to live again. They stretvhed me, taught me how to feed myself again. They taught me how to speak again, and they taught me how to dress myself again. Then they sent me home, without going to check out my Mom's house. One problem here, my Mom's house had stairs. They had neglected to teach me how to walk up or down stairs. This meant my Mom and I had to figure out a way to go upstairs at night and back down in the morning. We did after a lot of planning. We decided to: bump up the stairs at night and back down in the morning.