A woman has revealed the horrific injuries she suffered after she was trampled in the face by a horse.
Liz Falkingham said she was walking a young horse to a stable yard when it startled and knocked her off her feet.
In its spooked state, the horse had run over the top of Liz, kicking the back of her head and smashing her face into the concrete.
Liz, who said she has no recollection of the freak accident, suffered lacerations to her scalp that needed 16 staples, a fractured cheekbone, a deep cut to her eyebrow and severe haematomas to her thighs.
Reliving the incident, which happened last September, Liz told Hull Live : "The only thing I recall is the horse shooting forward and the next thing I can remember is ringing my husband to tell him to come back to the farm.
“I suspect I kept hold – your instinct is to grip the rope – and evidently I asked them about 20 times whether they had caught the horse and got it in its stable safely.
“Someone who was visiting the farm found me and apparently I had been screaming and saying that my leg was broken.
“They called the ambulance and the responder on the phone was getting them to ask me questions, which I have absolutely no memory of, and evidently I was talking nonsense.
“In the ambulance, I remember saying to the paramedics, ‘please don’t shave my head’ – they didn’t realise I had a head injury at that point because I was laid on my back and the front of my face was injured and covered in blood."
Liz, who runs a small livery business and works on the family’s beef and arable farm at Driffield, spent the night in Hull Royal Infimary, before she was allowed to return home to be looked after by husband Paul Temple.
“I felt like I’d been run over by a train, not a horse,” said Liz, who is also a freelance journalist and writer and runs Wheatear Cottage, a holiday let on the farm where guests can bring their horses.
“My doctor told me not to ride for at least three months and even after a few months, wearing a riding hat gave me severe headaches.
“Having spoken to a fellow equestrian who had experienced something similar, it sounds as though I might have had post-concussion syndrome.
“The bruising took a long time to go – it gradually moved down my face to my jawline and neck, I was all the colours of the rainbow.”
Liz said: “It hasn’t put me off horses – they can all be unpredictable and this horse didn’t do it on purpose.
“I grew up with horses at home and I’ve been kicked and bitten a few times – one of my horses slipped coming through a gateway and I got caught between it and the gatepost.
“When you have livestock you will get kicked or knocked over occasionally.
“Animals can be dangerous and you are as careful as you have to be; you should never be complacent. I am more careful now because I am more aware.”
Liz said: “I did a little bit of riding in the spring, then lockdown happened. I’ve just started riding regularly again now.”
During her recovery from the incident, Liz saw an Instagram post by beauty journalist Alice Hart-Davison’s recommending a special mask that uses LED light therapy to help with healing, redness and skin renewal.
She said: “I knew a friend of mine uses LED light therapy for facial scarring and my sister had an LED mask from a different company, so I borrowed one and I thought I could really feel the benefits.”
Liz’s husband bought her an early Christmas gift of a CurrentBody Skin LED Light Therapy Mask, which she is continuing to use today.
“The accident left me with a deep red scar in my eyebrow and you can hardly tell it is there now, you have to look really closely,” she said.
