Close Call

Yesterday, we had a dangerously close call with Rigdon. He was spending some time at my parents' house and was playing outside on their trampoline.  When my dad checked back on him just a minute or two later, he was gone. My dad called for him and he didn't answer.  So he went searching for him.

He found him, in the horse pasture, flat on his back, crying.  There were three horses standing over him.  No one saw what happened but judging from the abrasions that he received along his jaw and chest, it looks like he got trampled or kicked around a little bit.   

When I came to pick him up, my mom told me they had a scare with Rigdon.  I thought no big deal until my dad came up and began hugging me and crying.  When I finally saw Rigdon's body, I was shaken up a little bit and concerned.  I wasn't expecting to find abrasions and bruises along his jaw, chest, and a little bit on his shoulders. His chest marks looked like he got stepped on or (like Rigdon said) "horsie kicked."  I couldn't help feeling worried about it.  He seemed fine, he was moving around, and his abrasions didn't look THAT bad, but I needed to make sure everything was fine on the inside too.  It's serious business for a little 27 pound body to get kicked or stepped on by a 1,000 pound animal, especially when it's on the chest and face.

Showing me his owies. 

Luckily, just as I was getting home, my home teachers stopped by to visit our family.  I asked them to give Rigdon a priesthood blessing.  Brother Pulsipher blessed Rigdon that his wounds would just be superficial and that he would gain wisdom from the experience (I hope so, maybe he'll think twice about going into the horse pasture by himself.) 

Today he is smiling, but yesterday was a very different story.  When he would tell me what happened, his little face would crease into a pitiful, pouty face and then begin to tear up.  I think he was still in shock that one of his most favorite animals would ever hurt him.  After the home teachers left, I took him to a medical facility to get him checked out.

At the medical facility, Rigdon was examined and had some chest x-rays done (during which he screamed the whole time and squirmed around so much that we had to do them again, fun.)  The chest x-rays turned out fine (whew.)  However, I was also concerned about his brain.  He obviously got kicked or nicked somehow on the side of the face, so I was worried about any possible trauma, however slight it may be.  The nurse practitioner told me that if anything was wrong with his brain, sometimes signs of it wouldn't show up for another day or two.  Oh, man!  I was to look for anything out of the ordinary such as vomiting, acting lethargic, etc.

I stayed home from work this morning so I could keep a close eye on him...so far Rigdon seems like his normal self.    *big smiles*

This situation could have turned out so much worse, and the thought of it just pulls on my heartstrings.  But all is well and there's not much that keeps my little dude down.  I just hope he'll still like riding horses and not be scared but have a healthy respect for them.