USA’s Jennifer Hoffmann Hospitalized Briefly After Accident at German Horse Show–Doing OK
7 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on USA’s Jennifer Hoffmann Hospitalized Briefly After Accident at German Horse Show–Doing OK
CAPPELN, Germany, July 14, 2017–Jennifer Hoffman, the Californian transplanted to Germany more than seven years ago, was hospitalized briefly after a riding accident the day before the start of this show Friday that apparently has not caused any long term issues but led to scratching her two Grand Prix horses from this CDI4*.
The fall occurred Thursday afternoon while preparing her two Grand Prix stallions, Florentinus V and XXXL Rubinio NRW, both of whom have delivered outstanding performances in the past three months.
She was riding into the stabling tent and the horse spooked when Jennifer attempted to close an open tack trunk door blocking the entrance. She was thrown upward in the saddle and hit her head on a steel support beam.
“I heard a very loud cracking to my lower neck and was immediately painful and dizzy,” Jennifer told dressage-news.com. “Thank God I was wearing a helmet as I think the situation had been much worse had I not. I immediately went to rest a while thinking it would pass.
“I managed through the vet jog with both my boys and then again rested up thinking, ‘I’m a hard girl, it will be fine.’
“But this morning I still had horrible neck pain and excruciating headache and dizziness. My husband Jürgen had been very worried and said, ‘enough is enough, we’re getting you looked at’.’
Medics called in put her neck in a brace then she was taken to the emergency room at the Cloppenburg hospital.
“I received a CT and infusion,” Jennifer said, “thankful nothing broken could be found. A bad concussion and severe compression of the spine.
“With medication and a couple of days rest we’re hopeful all will be OK.
“Lesson learned, never going to ride into the stable aisle again as you never know what could happen and again I’m very lucky to have been wearing my Uvex helmet. I don’t even want to begin to think about what worse could have happened!”
Jennifer said that both horses were in top form.
Florentinus is an 11-year-old Westfalen that she competed as a six-year-old at the World Young Horse Championships and began Big Tour two months ago, logging two third place finishes in six starts.
Rubinio is a 14-year-old Westfalen stallion that began CDI Grand Prix three years ago , were in top form for the competition.
