Nurse who was paralysed after her horse crushed her is dreaming of competing in the Paralympics

Sallyanne went against the advice of her doctor, and is now back in the saddle.

A nurse left paralysed after a horrific horse-riding accident defied doctors’ advice and is back in the saddle again – with dreams of riding for Great Britain in the Paralympics.

Sallyanne Haigh, 44, from Frampton Cottrell, Gloucestershire, was devastated to be told she’d never walk again after a horse crushed her, causing her bones to sever her spinal cord.

In hospital for six months going “stir crazy”, the divorced mum of Harry, 17, and Stella, 15, became determined not to let her disability hamper her life.

Sallyanne with children Stella and Harry (1) (PA Photo)

And, after practising using mechanical horses at a special disabled riding centre in Bristol, Sallyanne finally got back in the saddle for real in April 2017.

Since then, she has been working towards her dream of competing in the Paralympics.

“A lot of people told me not to get back to riding, including doctors,” said Sallyanne, adding that she eventually found a private consultant in Oxford who wrote her a note saying she was fit to ride.

Sallyanne with friend's horse Flynn (2) (PA Photo)

She continued: “I know my son Harry is very worried that I’ll do more damage to myself, but he would never tell me not to because he knows how much I love it.

“It’s hard for people to understand, but when you’re in a wheelchair all day, getting out and being able to ride and be free is an incredible feeling, and I’m going to keep doing it no matter what.”

A horse lover almost her entire life, Sallyanne first began riding when she was seven years old.

Sallyanne with Oubles before her riding accident (PA Photo)

She competed in local dressage competitions and would be out riding most days.

Alongside her beloved hobby, she also forged a successful career in the NHS as the community nursing manager for south Gloucestershire.

But her life changed forever in October 2015, when she entered what was supposed to be just a small event with her riding club.

Sallyanne in Southmead Hospital following her accident (PA Photo)

Halfway around the cross-country course, Sallyanne’s spirited stallion Oubles refused to jump a fence.

She recalled: “We went around again for a second go, but just as we came to the jump, Oubles reared up on his back legs and toppled backwards.

“I wasn’t able to get off in time, so he fell with me in the saddle, crushing me completely beneath him and then kicking me as he tried to scramble up.”

Sallyanne with children Stella and Harry (2) (PA Photo)

She added: “The pain was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I could hardly breathe, and it felt like I had a heap of bricks lying on my chest. I realised I couldn’t move my legs.”

Having seen the accident unfold, one of the officials at the event raised the alarm, and an air ambulance was dispatched.

As medics arrived and worked on her, Sallyanne knew from her 25-year nursing career that her prognosis didn’t look good.

Sallyanne's back after her nine-hour operation (PA Photo)

She said: “I thought I was going to die because the pain was unimaginably awful. The medic took my hand and said, ‘You’re not going to die, but you might never be able to walk again.’”

After being flown by helicopter to Southmead Hospital in Bristol, Sallyanne, who had smashed five vertebrae, underwent a nine-hour operation to reconstruct her shattered back.

But sadly, surgeons were not able to fix the irreparable damage done to her severed spinal cord and broke the news that she was paralysed.

X-ray of Sallyanne's back following her operation (1)(PA Photo)

Meanwhile, her sister Victoria, dad Brian and two children were then called.

Seeing her family, the reality of her situation began to sink in.

“The idea that I was never going to walk again hit me when I saw them,” she recalled. “I have two children to feed and a mortgage to pay and I knew that getting back to work was going to be a problem.”

Sallyanne had intensive physiotherapy while in Salisbury Hospital (2) (PA Photo)

She continued: “Suddenly all these worries just came down on me.”

Confined to hospital for six months while she learned how to adjust to life in a wheelchair, Sallyanne, so used to helping others in her job, now found herself entirely dependent on doctors, friends and family for everything.

“You essentially have to relearn how to move, and while you’re doing that you become completely helpless. I had to rely on other people to do even basic things like get me upstairs to the bathroom to shower,” she said.

Sallyanne needs six helpers to ride now (PA Photo)

She continued: “One of the hardest things for me was losing control of my bladder and bowel movements because you don’t just lose the use of your legs, but everything beneath where the spinal cord is broken.

“I had Botox on my bladder to help with the control, and I also have a catheter which I have to use up to six times a day.”

Feeling trapped in her own body, Sallyanne admits went through a “dark time”, growing increasingly frustrated at being away from her family.

Sallyanne's children Stella and Harry (1) (PA Photo)

Sallyanne added: “I’m a very outdoorsy person and I was beginning to go stir-crazy trapped in hospital.”

Finally, in March 2016, when Sallyanne was released from Salisbury hospital, a specialist disability hospital where she had been transferred to after Christmas, her first thought was to get back on a horse.

Despite the warnings of her family, friends and medical consultants, the keen equestrian wanted to return to the life she’d had before her accident.”

Sallyanne practiced for months on a mechanical horse(PA Photo)

“People said to me, ‘You’ll have to go and live in a bungalow and make this change and that change.’ But I said, ‘No, I’m going to carry on with my life as usual,’” she said.

Six months after, Sallyanne was back in the saddle on a mechanical horse.

Then, in April 2017, she was eventually back on a real horse – a gelding owned by a friend of hers.

Sallyanne being hoisted onto a horse (PA Photo)

Riding now is not an easy process, as she needs a minimum of six helpers as well as a special hoist which lifts her up and places her on the back of the horse.

She has also had to adjust to using whips in each hand to gently apply pressure, rather than relying on her legs to guide the animal.

But for Sallyanne, it’s worth the effort and the expense.

Sallyanne in her wheelchair(PA Photo)

She still works as a nurse part-time, but is also now a blogger for a riding magazine and an ambassador for neurological rehabilitation centre Neurokinex, a not-for-profit organisation which offers spinal cord injury rehabilitation with centres in Bristol, where she is a client, Gatwick and Hemel Hempstead.

“Riding now is an exhilarating experience and it requires a much bigger partnership between you and the horse because you have to trust it a lot more than you would with the use of your legs,” she said.

“I have a long road ahead of me, but I love what I’m doing. The dream is to compete in the Paralympic dressage event. You can’t put a timescale on it but I’m not getting any younger, so hopefully I will be in Paris in 2024.”

Sallyanne with children Stella and Harry (3) (PA Photo)

She added: “The risks are obviously there, and I have fallen off the horse.

“But the things you want in life don’t just drop into your lap – you have to work for them.”

For more information about Neurokinex visit www.neurokinex.org

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nathan Chasing Horse, the former “Dances with Wolves” actor accused of sexual abuse, was temporarily thrown out of court Monday after he disrupted proceedings with demands he be allowed to fire his defense attorney a week before trial.

Judge Jessica Peterson in Las Vegas ordered his jury trial to proceed next week as planned.

Chasing Horse has pleaded not guilty to 21 charges, including allegations that he sexually assaulted women and girls and that he filmed himself sexually abusing a girl younger than 14. Prosecutors allege he used his reputation as a spiritual leader and healer to take advantage of Native American women and girls over two decades.

Peterson ordered him removed from court Monday for trying to speak over her. He argued that his attorney, Craig Mueller, did not come to visit him and did not file timely. He asked that a public defender who previously represented him be his attorney.

Mueller, a private defense attorney, told the court his client was ready and privately told the judge that one of his investigators had visited with Chasing Horse. He declined to comment to The Associated Press.

Best known for portraying the character Smiles A Lot in the 1990 movie “Dances with Wolves,” Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.

After starring in the Oscar-winning film, according to prosecutors, Chasing Horse began propping himself up as a self-proclaimed Lakota medicine man while traveling around North America to perform healing ceremonies. When he was arrested in 2023, he was living in a North Las Vegas house with his five wives, according to prosecutors.

The case sent shock waves across Indian Country. The original indictment was dismissed in 2024 after the Nevada Supreme Court ruled prosecutors abused the grand jury process when they provided a definition of grooming as evidence without any expert testimony. However, the court left open the possibility of charges being refiled, and a new indictment was brought later that year.

Prosecutors claim Chasing Horse led a cult called The Circle, and his followers believed he could speak with spirits. His victims went to him for medical help, according to a transcript from a grand jury hearing.

Prosecutors expect the trial to last three weeks. It is scheduled to begin Monday.

FILE - Nathan Chasing Horse sits in court, Feb. 8, 2023, in North Las Vegas, Nev. (AP Photo/Ty O'Neil, File)