Hello! I am Natalie Hawkins I’m 11 almost 12 years old. I love riding and hanging around horses. I have a 15 year old sister named Katelyn. She got an opportunity of a lifetime to train a two year old horse who has never been ridden before. Katelyn has just started riding him last Saturday and he is being really good for his first time riding. Katelyn and I try to go to horse training everyday. I have been riding a horse named Harry about everyday of the week! I enjoy drawing and reading. I could read for almost all day. Drawing is fun when I feel like doing it. We also go to a co op every friday for ten weeks in the fall and winter. I am helping in a class for the first time! I am learning a lot. I’m helping first hour in art, then I take myth busters second hour and last hour I take gym class. Right in this point in time we have really diving into horses and horse training. This story is about just that, horses.  

  

      It was a warm sunny afternoon, a perfect day for horse training. Katelyn was using a horse that our 4H leader owned. Her horse along with two others did not like being caught so they ran away every time we went to catch them. The horses had access to four paddocks, which made catching them very difficult. I often helped my sister catch her horse. On this day, my job was to stand in the middle of the paddock and if the horses would come near me I would wave my arms up and down and yell at them. They would stop so fast that dirt flew at me every time and then the horses would do a rollback (which is where the horse almost sits on their butt and then lifts up their front end and turns around) about 20 feet away from me and then run back to Katelyn. It worked well, Katelyn didn’t have to run all the way to the back paddock to catch them. 

On this Wednesday my mom dropped us off and left to get gas real quick. I walked into the paddock as always and the horses went galloping off. As they were coming toward me I started shouting and jumping up and down. Sunny a big fat dull horse was running the fastest. Sunny stopped in front of me, he reared and then I heard Katelyn shout “RUN!!!!!!” as soon as I started to run he came running at me. I felt a huge thump on my chest and smelled horse sweat as strong as stinky cheese. The whole thing was such a blur. All I remember was falling and rolling on the ground looking up and seeing a million hoofs all jumbled around. It’s hard to explain what I felt after he ran me over. I remember not trying to get up. I scrambled backwards as fast as I could. I remember thinking I have to get out of he way, I can’t get ran over by one of the other horses. Katelyn came running up to me saying she needed to get help but I kept saying over and over again don’t leave me you can’t leave me with the horses. Just at that moment Susan and her friend Liz came running out of the house. As soon 

as Liz got to me I felt searing pain in my knee and head. The adrenalin was leaving but the pain came. Liz asked where it hurt and when I told her she asked me to bend my knee. It hurt so bad I said I didn’t want to bend it again. Liz and Katelyn got me up and helped my walk out of the paddock and sit down. Liz called my mom and she came. When my mom got there she helped me into the car and we went to the hospital. My arm was bleeding right on the top of my elbow and I had a big scab on my head. 

They checked me over and told me that I should get an x-ray on my knee. They took me into the x-ray room and laid me down on a hard table. The Doctors said that I only had external injuries and that I would heal just fine as long as I was careful. My family and I went out to eat that night at Bob Evans. We also had a 4h meeting that night. Our meeting was at Susan’s so I saw Sunny again. My 4h leader had me get on Sunny and ride him.  I was not scared, I knew that it was my fault and Sunny didn’t mean to run me over. I wasn’t mad at him just mad at myself. The horse that I was using for 4h fair did not come that night. My mom said that even though the Doctor said that I could ride whenever I wanted too she wanted me to rest. Fair started in four days and I was going to go. I had two black eyes, a bulging knee, scrapped arm and swollen head. My forehead was like memory foam. The first two days of fair I could barely wear my helmet. Putting on my hat was extremely painful. After that I had fun riding every day and meeting new friends (lots of them!). I didn’t let my pain and looks make me down and mean. I still wanted to have a fun and exciting time. 

   Now its 2015 over a year since that day and still I will never forget it. Sometimes when I am doing math or drawing or even reading I will look down at my arm and see that scar and remember everything. I used to have a burning or even numbness in my head that I have not felt in at least a month or two. But I still sometimes bump my head or itch my head too hard and that feeling will come back. I’m glad that I have those reminders. I’m not saying that i’m glad that I got hurt. I’m saying that when I look down at my arm it reminds me that I was lucky and I need to think through things a little more to make sure I’m being safe. My life changed a lot in just a few short seconds.