Have you ever thought through what would happen if you fall
off your horse out hacking? And do you know what to do if
you get hurt? Exploring exciting bridle ways,
hidden Woodlands, coastal paths and farmers fields are so much
fun with our horses, aren't they?
But these spots are often remote, a bit of grid or hard to
reach. And if you're heading out
hacking around your local town or village, the busy roads are
usually plagued with unpredictable traffic,
unpredictable people and dogs that sometimes have no recall.
We work out our hacking routes before every ride, don't we?
But do you ever make plans for if it all goes wrong?
How can we stay safe if we have a riding accident away from the
yard? Let's find out with Mike Elkins,
lead driving education manager at South Central Ambulance
Service NHS Foundation Trust. Mike, welcome to Curious
Equestrian. Thank you very much.
Nice to meet you, Anna. Great to have you on, Mike.
What inspired the launch of Project Pacer?
The operation. So in my line of work you tend
to hear a lot about Rd. safety campaigns that go on.
They're normally around things like cyclists, motorcyclists,
pedestrians, etcetera, which are all very good of course.
But there's a bit of a theme with that in that they're all
classed as vulnerable road users.
But I started to think myself a little bit because the latest
Highway Code obviously covers horse riders as well.
And it's also listed in the latest what's called a hierarchy
of road users. So you've got the pedestrians at
the top of this list and it's the cyclists, then it's horse
riders besides etcetera. And I started to think, well,
I've never really seen any campaign for horse riders.
Also, I live in the New Forest, that's where I grew up in the
New Forest as well. So I thought, well, where,
where, where's their campaigns? Where's their awareness going
on? So just came very curious to be
honest with you really. And I started looking into any
campaigns that are currently running and that's when I came
across the BHS, the British Horse Society and I saw their
campaigns running to pastor and White etcetera, etcetera.
So this more research into their website and that's when it came
across all of their facts and figures, which were actually
quite horrifying to be honest with you.
I believe I saw last time there were about 3000 a year being
recorded to the BHS where horse riders have had incidents on the
road or in stables, etcetera, etcetera.
But a lot of times where other motors have gone past them at
speed or given some verbal abuse or you know been assaulted
etcetera, etcetera, or even actually got off the horse and
had had a collision as well. So I started thinking, well,
again, this is all really, really good, but outside the
Christian community, where is the awareness?
I had to go and search for information myself, just I came
across other campaigns. So otherwise, what can I do in
my, in my role that we can, can change all that?
So I looked into what we at SCAS do as well, what we responded
to. Obviously we cover quite a lot
of rural areas across our four counties of Hampshire,
Berkshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire.
And over a two year period, we actually attended near 1000
incidents involving horse riders and or horses.
So again, I, I was quite staggered to read that as well
as I thought, well, there's an opportunity to fix this and do
something about it. So what I did from that was I
got in contact with the BHS and I managed to contact Legworth
Anna Marsh, who's the regional safety manager of the area.
And I put my case too, I said, you want to do a joint project
and try to bring this number down locally.
Absolutely fantastic. Let's just go do that.
So that's how it all started really.
And it was meant to be a localised project just coming my
region. So the local media got involved
in it. They helped the the project,
which is fantastic. And then it was the Horse and
Rider magazine that got hold of it as well through their links.
And they became a national project almost overnight.
So yeah, within two weeks go from a national project to a
national project. Very big sort of need that to a
national perspective and we've gone from there really.
So you would have seen the articles in the VHS magazines
and online etcetera. So it's it's kind of exploded
from there. And now we're here talking about
on on YouTube channels as well. So I'm very happy at that.
I'm very excited to sort of share this with you.
So yeah, thank you for the invite to come along and talk to
you about it. Oh, fantastic.
You've taken aback, Mike, by the uptake and the interest and the
concern nationally for riders on the road.
I, I was, I heard through Hannah, the BHS, there's a lot
of feedback coming back from their readers and they're
subscribers to their magazines and they love the articles we're
putting in place. And from their perspective, they
were saying it was nice to see something actually being done
about it that was a bit more proactive.
You find a lot of campaigns, there's a lot about prevention,
which is great, but things still do happen.
So the difference with Project Pacer is that we're looking at
how to prevent things happening in the 1st place, but also when
things do go wrong, what do you do about it?
What's the next step so that who do you call for help?
When do you call for help? So that's, that's the difference
really with it. It's prevention and in some
respects some cure as well. Oh, and just tell us, Mike, as
an ambulance service, what sort of incidents do you have to face
and tackle with horses and riders on the road?
So I can only re speak for our area, but obviously we cover the
New Forest and obviously it's very dense in horse riding
activities, horse riding schools and obviously semi feral ponies
as well. So the majority of calls that we
go to tend to be where drivers have collided with horses on the
road. So we talk about several semi
feral ponies here mostly, but we do attend running schools as
well. And people have fallen off the
horses, they've been kicked off, thrown off, etcetera.
And you know, occasionally to on hacking trails as well, it's
been more challenging for us to reach, but we can come to that
later on. So it's predominantly cars
hitting horses. And then we're being called to
obviously deal with the drivers more than obviously the horse
itself. That's dealt with by the police
and the Forestry Commission and the adjusters.
We also deal with the human aspect of everything, but we
also do deal with horse rides as well when they do come off the
horse on the road or off road as well.
So you're seeing really serious potentially accidents involving
the spine and the neck and and other similar incidents.
Very much so. So most injuries are going to be
what's called musculoskeletal. So we're looking at things like
joints, limbs, nerve endings as well.
And you can get some very serious injuries, very nasty
ones as well. And we, and we both know that
that can lead to paralysis can be some very serious
consequences as well. It doesn't take much to hurt the
human body. There's some real damage to it.
So that's what we come across mostly it's broken bones,
fractures and, and sometimes it internal injuries as well, where
we've got a, a broken rib cage that can easily cause a
punctured lung. Well, don't leave much of
spleen, things like that. So it's it's it's, there's a lot
to it. Very, very serious accidents,
Mike, it's safe to say. And isn't it interesting, Myself
and Teresa, who's the owner of Curious Equestrian and we were
having a meeting, we were saying as horse owners and horse
riders, and of course you don't always have to be riding the
horse to be involved in an accident either.
We actually don't often sit down and think about what we do in
the event of an emergency. We are busy in the day-to-day
care of our horses and in the activities that we do with them.
So Mike, if something goes wrong on the roads with us and our
horses, just talk us through what happens with when the
ambulance service arrived to the scene.
Well, if we look at firstly what's reported to us, so when
you do call for an ambulance through 999, you get put through
to our controlling operators and our call takers.
What they will do is they'll go through a series of questions
with you just to defer what's actually happened because that
determines how we respond to an incident.
So what we'll do, we'll ask you basically what has happened.
So let's look at, for example, incident with the horse rider on
the road, say they've fallen off the horse or been hit off the
horse. We need to look at have they
fallen off or they've been thrown off as someone being
trapped under the horse? Have they collapsed through the
medical condition? Could be a heart attack,
something like that that's taken place that could have caused
them to fall as well. So we've got the what's called
the mechanism of injury to an extent.
Then we're looking at, well, that's happened.
What's what's actually happened now, what's the result of that
happening? So have they got pain anywhere?
Have they got a, a broken leg or a broken arm?
Are are they bleeding anywhere? Are they breathing?
OK? So this is what they're going to
be asking you on the phone. Then we're looking at location,
very, very important for us, location because if we're
looking at a road situation, we're going to be thinking,
well, is it a busy arterial route?
Is it some of it's very, very remote and difficult to get to?
Is it a single track carriageway?
There's a lot of things to that as well because that can also
determine what we send as well as a resource.
So if it's in a very remote location, bearing in mind we
have to try to respond to the most serious calls in 7 minutes
of receiving the call, that's not a lot of time to get to
people. So we may be relying on things
like helicopters to respond for us as well with the air
ambulances. So maybe you see one of those
turn up before you see the conventional ambulance turn up,
you said. But as, as if you're making a
phone call, you won't know what's coming straight away.
That's all being done in the background whilst you're talking
to the the call taker. It's a lot to go through on
that. But it's all processed very,
very quickly by the control and staff.
And as as you're talking to them, they're, they're starting
to deploy resources at the same time.
So it's all multitasking. It's very, very clever stuff.
So and if you're the rider that has fallen off the horse and you
and you are hurt, I will say if you're in any real great pain
and, and any real danger don't move.
You know if if your neck is really hurting, your back's
hurting, or your your pebbles is really hurting by moving, you go
do a lot more damage. Potentially the only time you
should move or someone has moves you is if you're in immediate
danger or something else. Yes, yes, I mean, I, my mum once
had a terrible accident with my horse and admittedly we were
actually both on the ground. We were within a herd of horses,
our own herd within 50 acres, and the storm was brewing.
Something spooked them and actually the little tiny
miniature knocked my mum over at the knees.
She was just out out of my reach so I went to grab her but I
couldn't reach her, which was awful.
And then my great big horse, you know, 600 KG, went over the top
of my mum and to which point I wasn't sure what I would state I
would find my mum in. I actually thought she was dead
because the horse went over mum's head.
But because the horses were galloping, I sort of grabbed
hold of mum and pulled her up to her feet because I didn't want
Mum to get run over again by one of the galloping horses.
And I thought afterwards, Oh no, I don't think I should have
moved her. But of course there was an
imminent threat. So it's knowing what to do,
isn't it? In that scenario, do we stay
still? Do if if you're the guardian or
the family member or the friend, do you move that person or do
you keep them still? Absolutely mean.
She was very lucky you were there to help her in that
situation. If she's on her own, it could be
a different story. Yeah, I mean, she luckily, I
just must caveat it with she walked away with a broken
collarbone. So she was incredibly lucky and
still to this day I don't know how she did, but it's those sort
of things that we don't see coming and you don't know how to
behave. So in that instance I moved mum.
In other instances, you're saying we should stay if we're
the rider and we're in pain. We should stay still if there
isn't a galloping horse. Yeah, I would agree with that,
absolutely. Unless you're any immediate
danger or imminent threat or something else occurring to you,
I've been hit another horse or another vehicle, et cetera, try
and stay still. People respond differently to
these sort of things, don't they?
And people something get very, very scared, get very
frightened. Some people are able to deal
with it logically. We're all different as human
beings. But one thing is it's very
common that people do get that adrenaline spike as well.
So it does increase your heart rate, increase your breathing,
everything else. So what can really help if
you're injured yourself or you're with somebody who has
been injured and you're getting a little bit edgy because of the
adrenaline rush that's kicked in, you can take some slow deep
breaths because what that will do will help come your nervous
system. It'll help reduce your
respiratory rate as well. And also if you are bleeding for
any reason, obviously deep breaths do slow down the heart
rate as well. So what will happen is that you
won't bleed out as much as you would do if your heart's racing
100 miles an hour. Oh.
I never thought. Of that you think about
logically, obviously the hearts of pump is in the body is that
it's a pumping muscle. So if it's pumping really
quickly, you got more high blood pressure and more blood being
spurred out of those injuries out in the arteries and veins.
So you can so everything right down and it really does help.
Another trick with the breathing as well, but do those deep slow
breaths, you prevent what's something called
hyperventilation and what that is when people breathe so
quickly that you're not getting the oxygen into your bloodstream
and that can then cause you to collapse and faint as well.
And in the worst case scenario, they can cause respiratory
arrest. So you stop breathing them all
together. Oh my goodness.
So deep slow breaths. Mike, was that?
Absolutely, so you can inhale your count to 4, hold it,
release count to 4. So that can really help calm
someone down as well. What does it it triggers your
mind to believing everything is OK and it helps you think
clearer as well. So little things like that can
make a really big difference. What you're waiting for us to
obviously turn up and and help so.
Is there anything else we can do so deep, slow breathing, stay
still, or move out the way of oncoming traffic and potentially
horses? Absolutely, Yeah.
And going on the subject of bleeding as well, obviously
you've got a, a wound if you've got an arterial venal bleed, the
difference between the two, an arterial bleed is where you
obviously you've cut into an artery or a broken bone has
exploded an artery and cut through it.
You'll see the blood actually spurting out under high
pressure. So you look go quite a long way
from the body. Just, it looks quite scary when
you first see it, not going to lie, but it's, it's, it's
literally spurting out a venal blade.
It bleed is where you have obviously cut through a vein and
what you'll see with that is that the the blow will be a lot
darker in colour because a very dark red colour rather than a
bright red because it's obviously jostrolated.
But it will ooze out the wound. It'll be like it's pouring out
like like it was like at the end of a volcano as eruption and
you've got a lot of that oozing coming out of it.
That's that's different between the two.
So the venal bleed is that oozing, the arterial bleed is
the sputting out everywhere. And the best way to deal with
that is to apply direct pressure to the wound.
So bug on my hand up here, let's say my arm's got an arterial
bleeds coming out of it easily. Do hand really, really tight
pressure and just hold it as long as you possibly can.
If you've got a first aid kit with you, you apply bandage to
it as well and apply that pressure and just maintain that
pressure until the bleeding slows down or stops all
together. If it's that serious, it's going
to need obviously our help to control that bleeding
eventually. But by putting your hand over
that and that pressure being directed on there, it's going to
slow the rate at which you lose blood and that does it buys you
time. Gosh, and do you think I'm
trying to imagine how I would do this?
But I'm going to ask you nonetheless, Mike, do you think
we should be carrying first aid kits, you know, in saddle bags
or in a bag across our backs when we ride?
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate there's always a cost element to
these things, but I would encourage every single rider to
have some first aid training or some description because it's
really important, you know how to control a bleed.
It's really important you know how to deliver CPR to somebody
who's collapsed and also if you can as well use of an AED, then
automate external defibrillator. They're very easy to use.
OK. They're, they're not cheap.
The cost rough about 1000 lbs each.
But you can also some companies and charities provide
subscription service. So you pay some like £30 a month
and they provide you with a device and ongoing maintenance
for the, the device as well. So they'll replace all the, as
every solvent as the batteries for you and it's all part of
that subscription cost. So it makes it much more
affordable for places like riding schools and vigils as
well. So yeah, it's always worth
having with you. Even a small first case.
It's better than nothing. Just, you know, some plasters
and bandages just with you because it can take a while to
us to get to you in those rural locations.
Like I said, we've got a 7 minute response target for a
category one emergency, highest priority.
If you're at the middle of the New Forest, that's very, very
hard to achieve. All the best willing intention
in the world. It's unlikely we're going to get
to you in 7 minutes unless we've got some around the corner that
happens to be going through at that time.
You're looking at more 10 to 15 minutes potentially.
Yeah, it. Really does make you think,
doesn't it? I mean, I watch a lot of medical
dramas just for fun and the pleasure, but it does.
It does make you think. I was only saying to my mum the
other day, I have no idea what to do if someone just collapsed.
You know, actually that is really should be a, a human
scale, a human necessity that that I know how to react,
whether it's out on the streets or on the yard, if someone does
collapse. And then we bring horses into it
and actually look at how common accidents are, whether we're on
the ground or in the saddle. And I think to myself, why have
I never had first aid training? This is something really we
should learn alongside when we learn to ride a horse because
the two can go hand in hand. Mike, do you know where we can
receive, if we want it, first aid training where we can kind
of jump on that service? Yeah, the majority of ambulance
services across the country offer first aid training as
well. It's part of the corporate
services, so we offer it, as do many other NHS ambulance service
trusts. You've got St.
John's Ambulance and Do it British Red Cross and I believe
the British Horse Society also run their own first aid courses
as well. So let's go get in touch with
those. They might do a discount ready
for a member etcetera. So it's worth looking into it,
but there are so many challenges out there and that offer first
aid training, but make sure it is a certified course as well.
A typical course lasts about 3 days and you have a yearly
annual refresher or a one day refresher every three years
depending on who you go with. But it's, it's really worth
doing. It's a really good investment.
And like you just alluded to, most people don't think about it
or something's actually happened to them and they go, why do I, I
know that, why couldn't, I've done that before.
But it's very common as as human beings, we don't do anything
until something happens to us. 100.
Percent. What is the hindsight as well
that goes with it, you know? Yeah.
And I just think, why do we, why is this not something we all
immediately think of when we purchase a horse or learn to
ride a horse? Because actually, you know, they
are as much as we adore these incredible creatures, they are a
huge, heavy beast of an animal that do have the ability to kill
without meaning to most of the time.
And so actually, you know, we all know that accidents happen.
So that's something that I'm definitely jotting notes as you
speak, Mike, that actually a goal for the last part of this
year. Will be get on a first aid
course so I know what to do in the event of an emergency and
you mentioned Mike that it makes it even more difficult when a
ride is out in the middle of nowhere.
I mean that immediately to me. It thinks, gosh, should I stop
hacking out across fields and vast expanses of land where the
emergency services can't reach me?
Is that something we should take into consideration or can we do
something at the time to be more visible if we've had an
accident? I think don't, don't stop doing
what you're doing. Yeah, you, you ride horses for
pleasure, don't you? Some people do as professional
as well. You don't stop doing that.
It's not about scaremongering at all.
I'm not trying to scare people with this, this project and
awareness of first aid, et cetera.
I want people to still enjoy themselves.
I mean, I started riding myself two years ago because of this
project, so I'm not alone to ride as well.
Oh yeah, you're seeing it from the other side, Mike.
Absolutely. Well, I, I can't take a question
in a second, but I was curious as to what was like to be a
rider as well, because I've talked to equestrian and they
tell me all these wonderful things about being a horse,
owned a horse rider, et cetera. I thought I want to try, I just
want to see what it's like. And one of my friends is
actually a professional dressage rider.
Should I show you jumping dressage?
There's competition around the country, you know.
And I'm absolutely awe of her skill.
I really am. I wish I could do that but but
way off yet from that. I really am.
But she recommended to me that I go to Iranian school and just to
get to get a real feel for it. And I had my first lesson 2
years ago and I'd never look back.
I absolutely love it. Wow.
And what do you, Mike, is it that captured your spirit, do
you think? Why do you love it so much?
To me it's something different. I mean I'm a huge special head
normally. I'm normally in fast carbon
doing rally driving, I'm doing motor racing and obviously in my
line of work I'm teaching how to drive on response driving.
So I teach people how to drive on bloods and sirens, etcetera.
That's my primary role. So to do horse riding it's it's
completely dim, it's a huge contrast.
It's it's slower pace, it's outside and I love it.
I absolutely love it. Very grateful to my friend for
recommending that to me because I've never looked back.
And did it give you a whole new sort of perspective, M11 from
the emergency services point of view and then actually the
empathy towards the rider on the road when they get into
difficult situations? Very, very much so.
I mean, my, my late grandparents, they had horses
themselves. They grew up around horses.
It wasn't wasn't that new to me. But having now sat in the saddle
and looking at my position as well, how vulnerable I am as a
rider, yeah, it was a real open experience.
I won't be on the roads yet. That's, that's to come at some
point later in my riding journey.
But yeah, I I do see how vulnerable they would feel being
out on the road and you've got cars going past you.
It's ridiculous speeds, they're far too close and particularly
large like buses and lorries as well, things that that would
probably petrify me. I was going to say, do you think
your work will actually put you off hacking on the roads or is
that one of your ambitions in the saddle to achieve?
You can't put me off riding now. You can't put me off at all.
I've caught, I've caught the bug, so I'm going to keep going
with it. No, this is, this is all about
awareness, about prevention as well.
And like I said earlier, it's, it's about some cure as well.
When things do go wrong. Going back to your point, you
said earlier about, oh, should I stop doing this?
Shall I stop hacking, etcetera. I think people tend to come to
the illusion it can't happen to them.
And that's why we can be a bit reckless sometimes as human
beings with anything we do in life.
It, it won't happen to me, it's always somebody else happens to,
never to me. And So what I'm asking riders to
be is not to be complacent, obviously so.
And if something does happen, are you prepared for it?
And that's why again, I would encourage those first aid
courses and get the equipment, the first aid pouches, etcetera.
It doesn't, it's only a small bag now, isn't it?
It's tiny. These first aid pouches, now
they're very condensed, doesn't weigh anything, and you can fit
in your backpack or anything in your saddle, etcetera.
Yeah, so you could carry it along as you ride.
You can't, absolutely. That's.
A great idea and also of course we should also mention those who
take their horses walking on the roads because I also do that.
I have a horse at the minute that isn't ridden and I have
some miniatures as well and we love to go walking on the roads
and of course you are at the mercy of vehicles flying past
you too fast or overtaking, you know and actually almost cutting
you and the horses up. So actually a great idea to, to
take a first aid kit in a bag when you're walking your horses
as well. And I have to just add my
hearing that you've learnt to ride, you know, really sort of
does bring me joy because whenever I've had a horse riding
accident and you know, ended up in A&E as you do, I fell on my
head at one point. So in I go.
And of course all the doctors are almost sick to the teeth of
seeing another horse riding accident.
So you kind of get the lecture about all horses.
They're known to 'cause, you know, so many injuries and this,
I've seen this terrible case of this and then they'll tell you
another story about that in an attempt to put you off, you
know, horses and, and riding and all the activities associated
with our equines. So it's lovely to hear someone
who is part of the NHS actually saying, do you know what?
I tried it and I'm, I'm never looking back.
I love it. I think you'd be surprised how
many of us actually ride as well in the ambulance service.
There's quite a few equestrians in the ambulance service,
believe it or not. This is amazing that your job
doesn't put you off. So Mike, when you've seen what
you've seen in your training. Yeah, yes, I have.
I've seen things. But you know, I also appreciate
that it don't have it every day. It's not a regular occurrence,
thankfully, and it is. There's always a risk.
What we do in anything we do in life, there's always a risk.
So you don't take a risk, You can't enjoy life, can you?
No, that is it's. Not about stopping people with
this at all, a point you made earlier about being visible to
us on the roads as well. So on that very case, I mean as
a rider or even if you're walking your horses as well, I
would encourage anyone to wear a high vest as well, high
visibility tabard or jacket, etcetera.
Because what that does, it makes you up to three times more
visible to other road users. And for us, especially as
response drivers, we're obviously driving at higher
speeds. We're going to drive to save a
life. So if we can see you earlier
with a horse or on your horse, we can respond to you earlier as
well. So what we will do is.
Mike that was of course you get horses of all different shapes,
sizes and colours, even those riding bright white horses.
Do you think that the the grey horses as well should be, you
know, head to toe in high vis? I would say we head to toe in
high, as long as the rod isn't some high vis then we can see
straight away that there with a horse being set quite clearly.
But what we see is the contrasting colours.
Because any coloured horse can quite easily fade into the
background. There's not much of A contrast
between a horse and the environment, whether it's it's a
road or if it's trees, shrubs, etcetera.
They do blend in and especially in the New Forest where we've
got semi feral ponies, they do blend in very, very well,
especially at night time. We get a lot of crashes at night
time unfortunately because because drivers don't see them
in time, we've got a very limited view of the headlights.
So having anything that can make it more visible is is great.
Of course you see. Accidents as well to the wild
horses and ponies in your area. Yeah, I do.
So alongside my ambulance, I'm also in the police as well as a
special inspector. So I do attend that and my
police role as well. I've been to quite a few in new
frozen fortune over the years where they've hit horses and
deer etcetera. The when I talk to the drivers,
what they always say to me is, oh, I didn't see it coming or it
suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
And I always cringe when I hear that word.
It suddenly appeared. What that tells me is that you
didn't anticipate it. If you're driving through an
area that is known to have free roaming animals or horse riders,
you should be on the lookout for it all the time.
It shouldn't be a surprise to you.
Yes, yeah, just as. And we have a lot of deer here
roaming around. So whenever it gets to that sort
of dusky twilight, I've always sort of got my eyes, you know,
really peeled in the bushes as to what might come out or jump
out or whatever. But you're right, it is the
anticipation. I'm always on red alert for
something that might happen. Yeah, that's really important,
Adam, because if you anticipate it, it won't surprise you when
it does actually happen. So a lot of drivers tend to
drive an autopilot. They're very complacent,
particularly where they live. So most collisions tend to
happen within a 15 mile radius of your home.
Really. As a driver, because people
become very complacent to their immediate surroundings.
They might turn into a side road and every day nothing's ever
parked there. It's always clear, it's always
empty. But it'd be the one day they
turn into that road, there'd be a bus or a lorry park there and
they were expected to see if they hit the back of it because
they're also part and they're big complacent.
And it can be the same too around riding schools as well.
Where I go riding for my riding schools is obviously attached to
AI, say in main road, it's quite a busy road and it's, you've got
all the warning signs there before you've got advanced
warning signs. There's a riding school coming
up, there's company ponies, it's all there.
But people still drive past that double the speed limit.
And it it angers me because I think you have absolutely no
idea the damage you could cause to somebody by doing what you're
doing. Totally.
And this is what I'm so interested as well, Mike, and in
your campaign and the response that you're getting, how are you
targeting non horse owners and non horse riders?
Because we know that so many motorists now get very
aggravated seeing horses and riders on the road and think
there's no place for you get off the road.
You know, we are the bigger vehicle.
Why don't you just go off across the field?
So how are you trying to reach out to those non horsey
motorists? Well, the difference with this
project is obviously I said earlier with the British Horse
Society also do a lot of work around awareness as well.
And so if they've gone to the BBC, they've gone to other
national medias too. But most of the time most of the
content goes within the equestrian community.
I think we're going outside a bit.
What we're doing here in in South Central Ambulance Service
is using our own social media formats to get the word out to
people. And I've also involved the fire
service, involved the police as well.
And I've also reached out to a few more magazines too, to try
and get a word out to other people who might.
You see it hopefully, but I think the online campaigns are
much more effective because to buy a magazine you also got to
be into horse. It's gotta be a question
yourself. If you're not into horse, it's
not gonna pick up and buy it, are you?
But if you end up seeing it on maybe one of our social media
pages, Instagram and Facebook or whatever, people won't have to
see it. They think, well, actually, hang
on a minute, I live in this area.
I might see one. The power of social media, it
gets a lot of bad reputation, doesn't it, Social media.
But actually it can be a brilliant platform to actually
change attitudes. How do you think your post
might? How are you targeting your post
to sort of change the attitudes of those drivers who might have
those slightly aggressive views towards horse and rider?
Attitudes are very hard thing to change, Anna.
We see that in our in our own training schools.
You know, if someone's got an attitude or a certain behaviour,
it's very hard to change that. What normally changes people's
attitudes is shock. So it's something unexpected.
So if I was to show somebody a very graphic picture of an
incident, then we used to go, oh, I don't like that, I don't
want to see that again. What can I do to change that?
And normally it's, it's that shock tactic that gets to
people. You can spend an entire day with
somebody trying to explain reasons why you wouldn't do
something, why you wouldn't go close to a horse, why you
wouldn't go past it. Twenty, 30-40 miles an hour.
And because they haven't got a visual, they won't understand
it. Once you show them the
consequences of what actually happened, they go, Oh, no, thank
you, I don't like that. And that's about to stay with
the people. Yeah, it does.
It does. And as you appreciate, obviously
in the ambulance service, we've got some very, very graphic
images for training purposes. And if I look and they go, oh,
well, don't like that. That looks horrible.
It's very, very nasty. And I'm, I'm an experienced, you
know, Amber's person and police officer as well.
I've seen a lot of things in my lifetime.
But, you know, I look at something and go, oh, that, that
looks nasty. Oh.
And. I'm an experienced person so.
I don't know how you cope in, you know, such a traumatic job
role in in many ways seeing these really difficult scenes
and turning up to situations that are, you know, really quite
hard to get your head around. How do yourself and your team
kind of look after your own mental health when you are
dealing with very serious horse riding accidents and others as
well? So we do have our own own
internal support networks as well.
We do have what's called the trim service.
So we look at traumatic incidents together.
Any major incident we come across, you normally have a
commander on scene who will take overall command of the incident.
So you have some of them, they're the police, the fire and
the animals all come together to talk to each other.
And very much a multi agency approach of what will happen
after any large incident is they will have what's called a hot
debrief. And what that is, is getting
inward together at the scene after a bit and just see, right,
is everyone OK? How are you feeling right now?
Most of the time people feel absolutely fine in the moment.
We're very well trained to deal with these sorts of things.
We do a lot of training, a lot of preparation, a lot of
practice as well before we actually go out on the streets
and do it for real. And when you're in the moment,
what normally happens is you just come a robot.
I suddenly did anywhere. I first started out, I had all
my training. I just did the job.
I remember my first car like arrest, you know, I went to the
first time to do CPR on the real person.
And at the time I going to the job, I thought, oh, this is
really, Oh my God, this is this is crazy.
But when I got to it, my mind just switched and I went
straight into basically being Amber's man, do the job.
And I did it was only after the event.
I thought, don't just do that. Yeah.
And then 45 minutes, you know, a long time with this person
didn't try and do CP on trying to resuscitate them.
We were there for quite a long time.
But it's only after that experience I thought, yeah, did
that really just happen to me? And that's the time you want to
start talking about these things.
So that's how we manage things internally.
And without sounding horrible about you, you do bit of some
sort of immunity to it as well because you you can climatise to
it. You're used to seeing these
things and therefore we don't get as shocked by it.
Yes. Well, I'm interested to know
Mike, now we know you're a horse rider as well.
How do you compartmentalize the accidents that you've been to
and that you've seen and then getting into the saddle knowing
that actually that is a possible eventuality for anyone who sits
on a horse? How do you kind of close off
your work brain and and and not think about every different
scenario that could happen? I'm very good at switching off
on things. Sometimes it's all about mindset
Annoise things. I tend to focus on the moment,
what's going on right now. So when I go horse riding, I
don't even think about work. I don't think.
And that's why I enjoy it so much.
It's it's, it's complete mental switch.
I'm so relaxed, I'm chilled, I'm loving being outdoors, I'm
loving being in the saddle. I'm loving loving new skills and
new tricks. I don't even think about work at
all. And I think it's what a lot of
writers get out for being here from other equestrians.
It's it's that sense of escapism.
So yeah, it's, it's peaceful, it's quiet most of the time.
And it's it's just enjoyable as well.
So I very much see that you you. Exist in both worlds, Mike it
really, it's great when you're talking to someone who's heading
up a campaign and he knows both perspectives.
Yeah, I mean, the advantage I have obviously being in, in the
services, that is I'm more aware of what could happen, but also
aware what I can do about it as well.
So maybe it gives me a bit more confidence in my writing.
So if I fall off, yeah, I'll, I'll keep still.
I won't do this. I won't do that.
I'll, I'll hold on to my shoulder.
I'll hold on to my, my ribs or whatever has happened.
So I know what to do. But I appreciate a lot of people
don't know what to do. And that's what that that shot
comes into the adrenaline rush comes in and people think, oh,
what should I do now? I don't know.
Who do I call for help? Yeah, actually that's that's a
really interesting thought that of course, as, as someone who's
in the ambulance team, as someone who's a doctor or a
nurse, there is an element of feeling equipped to deal with
your own health problems and accidents outside the home.
And actually you feel geared up for that.
But then just because we aren't trained medics, we can go and
seek, as you've mentioned, that first aid training to feel more
equipped and feel like we've got a certain element of control in
actually quite a terrifying predicament.
Yeah, you don't need to be a minute to save a life.
You don't need to be trained to save a life.
It's just for having that awareness of first aid and and
basically staying calm as well. Even calling 999 will help
somebody, even, you know, let's say you're in a riding school or
you're out of the question event, you know, even creating a
sterile area for someone to come and work in, you know, moving
horses away from the incident, that all helps.
It all helps massively. Actually on that point itself, I
mentioned earlier about air ambulances coming to to rescue
people, especially in bigger remote areas.
You may be asked by the ambulance control room staff to
actually see if we can move people or horses away from the
incident so the headquarters actually land somewhere safely.
Wow. Yeah.
And they always ask you to control access and egress, too.
So if you've got a gated area, they might ask you, oh, can you
make sure the gates are secure so no one else comes into the
arena or come into the area so we can land safely.
So there's little things like that.
But in the moment you don't think about it, no, because
there's so much going on. Your priority is going to be,
oh, I'm hurt or my, my friends hurt, what do I do about them?
And you do become a little bit tunnel visioned with that and
you forget the bigger picture. So first age awareness is an
absolute must for me. I would say as an ambulance
person, of course I'd say that. But you don't need to be a
doctor to save a life. It's normally the basics that
save lives. Such powerful words, especially
to US listening who you know, we aren't trained medics.
So that gives us all that ability to go out and actually
make positive change today, book onto a first aid course and
actually have that better idea of how to save a life and how to
be prepared in a riding accident or any accident with horses that
we may not have been able to cope with before.
And Mike, we've been talking about heading out into remote
areas, whether we're in hand, hacking, walking our horses or
whether we're riding. But there are a lot now.
There are a lot of bridal ways that are sort of reserved for
us, but they've overgrown and they're quite restricted.
You can't get into them, they haven't been maintained.
So it's pushing a lot of riders to unfortunately ride more on
the roads, obviously, I'm guessing inevitably causing more
accidents. Is there any pressure we can put
on our local councils or who do we speak to in our areas, do you
think if our bridal ways are sort of, you know, overgrown
with Brackenham branches? Yeah, if that's that's the case,
I would definitely approach a local council authority or even
the Forestry Commission. It really depends on who owns
the the land ultimately downtime to manage that.
And I would definitely highlight the fact that, you know, it's
it's making riders go onto the rows and causing potentially
more problems in the process. They've got responsibility to
get that that clear for access. They can't, they can't neglect
it. And you mentioned about access
for us as well getting to it. We do obviously have other teams
that can have off road vehicles. We can get to you that way.
But again, it's always that delayed response, which
obviously isn't a good thing when you're lying on the ground
injured and you're in pain, so. How can we best prepare?
Heading out on a hack Mike, are there?
Is there tech and gadgets and gizmos we can take with us when
we're heading off to a remote location?
Because something else I'm also aware of living rurally is that
there's not always phone signal wherever you ride.
Yeah, that's a common problem in rural areas is phone signal.
I don't know if people realise this, but but if you've got no
signal in your phone 999, it will still go through.
What happens is it connects to the nearest mast available.
So if you're on, let's say O2 network and you've got no
signal, it will connect to Vodafone, you'll connect to
Three. Whoever's got signal, it will
connect to, to give that connection to the emergency
services. I don't know if you're aware as
well, but with a lot of modern phones, these are actually more
than smartphones. There is actually a locator
within the phone as well, and that can send a signal to the
police to fire the ambulance services.
And we know exactly where you are.
Wow. OK, I didn't know that.
Yeah. It's called AML, top of my house
around what actually stands for. I had it somewhere in Dallas so
I'm going to find it a second for you.
It's called AML and he's going to get a locator built into your
smartphone. Oh AML smartphone, I'm going to
quickly Google. It, yeah, it's going to your
smartphone. It won't be on the older
smartphones. So like your iPhone 5-6 or
seven, it probably won't be on those.
But the later models, it will be on on those and that's both
Android and Apple. Wow, so you can.
Actually send your location, Yeah, so it's called Advanced
Mobile Location. Advanced Mobile.
And what it does when you, when you call 999 from your
smartphone, you actually send it's like location directly to
the emergency services. Wow, that's a powerful bit of
kit, and that's all within the phones that we already have.
If we've got one of the newer models, that's brilliant.
Built in GPS system that they use with that and that's
obviously, you know, if you've got an older phone, it hasn't
got that technology built in. Obviously you've got what 3
words as well. Yes, that's a very good app to
use for us as well because obviously it does breakdown the
entire world into little squares, doesn't it?
It's got, it's got a three name square with it and we can use
that as well. If we're responding to you, we
can use our own phones to find you as well.
Great. So that's a good alternative to
have. So your mobile phone is probably
the best bit of a company you can take out with you in terms
of technology. So mobile phone definitely small
first aid. Kit to know this jacket.
Oh, sorry. Say that again, Mike, just
because I interrupted you. Say those three things.
Sorry, Yeah, so it's the mobile phone, small first aid kit and a
high vis jacket. There will be the the three
things I would always take out with me if I was going out for a
hack. Brilliant and I actually had no
idea that you could phone 999 with no signal and it would jump
to another mast. So that is such a great tip.
Top tip for anyone listening or watching who doesn't know that
actually it's a reminder, isn't it?
Because I think actually that might have spooked me if I'd
have been out and about and there was no signal and I
thought to call 999, that might have put me off if I had no
bars. So it's great to know that there
is that security still, even when your signal has failed you.
So we'll all remember that. Mike, I've got to ask as well.
We'll talk about gadgets, gizmos, what we can take.
Some of them. We know high viz, a lot of us
wear it. Some of us are lazy.
We need to remember to wear high viz, taking our phones, getting
a first aid kit, signing onto a first aid course, which I now
know I definitely need to do. How do you think spreading this
awareness will save more lives? Mike, what are your hopes and
ambitions for this campaign? I really, really want to cut
down numbers of incidents that report every year to the BHS,
obviously to us as well. We, we attend.
There's a bigger picture with this.
We look from the health service perspective, if we're reducing
medical calls because of collisions and people falling
off, then it's reducing the burn on the hospitals as well.
There's a greater scheme here. So, and I, I know for a fact
that, you know, those 3000 annual incidences reported to
the BHS, that's only going to be tip of the iceberg, isn't it?
It's, no, not everybody reports things these days.
They report things if they want to, but a lot of times people
will just forget about it. They move on.
They don't even think about reporting it.
So I know that it's not a true figure either.
So I know it'd be a lot, lot higher.
And I'm really hoping that I can help bring those stats down.
And what would you say to someone listening who has been
around horses all their life? And there's a certain area of
confidence that comes with that, isn't there, Mike, where you
think you know everything and that you can handle all sort of
scenarios with your horse? What would you say to them who
perhaps may not always wear high vids, that may not always take
precautions when they're out on the road?
What would you say to try and get them to listen to your
campaign? Well, I'll say two things
really. And the first one is there's a
saying in the services, the day you stop learning, the day you
should quit because you're always learning about something.
If you stop learning, then you're a dangerous to yourself.
You always should be always developing.
And the other part to that as well is they'll be complacent
either because it could happen to you, it may not, but we don't
know. There's there's no certainties
with that whatsoever. And I want to ask people who,
who think, you know, how this is not worth it, just think about
maybe us responding to you or maybe think about your loved
ones as well. How's it going to affect them?
If you were involved in something, it could have been
prevented. Yes, it could have been.
So think about think about your friends and your family as well.
And also think about, you know, especially for us, you know, can
we see you? Can we find you?
Another thing with being visible as well, especially when we're
coming up behind a horse ride on lights and sirens.
We need to see where you are as well.
We need to see nice and early. And I know summer horse riders,
they're trying to be very, very helpful to us and they might
start trotting or cantering or galloping on the road.
I'm making it very clear we don't want that to happen.
We don't want you to do anything like that at all.
All we would ask you to do is to.
If you can get off the road, great.
If you can't, just keep going as you are until you find somewhere
safe you could pull into. That could be someones driveway,
it could be a cyber, etc. But remain visible.
Some horse riders, what they'll do is they'll come off at the
carriage way, they'll go into someone's driveway and they're
obscured by a hedge or a Bush or a tree.
And the trouble that is we then can't see you.
We don't know you're there. So we may end up going past you
on like the sirens blaring and scaring your horse.
Oh gosh, I never spoken it to the horses.
Say again sorry. I never thought about the sirens
and the speed of the ambulance and and spooking the horses at
the scene. Yes.
So with with that Anna. So we do obviously train all our
response drivers to obviously activate the sirens as soon as
they see the horse or horse rider.
That's hence one point about being visible is really
important. If we're seeing you in a hubby's
jacket after three times earlier, we got a lot more time
to plan our approach to dealing with you.
So what we will do as as response drivers is we will turn
the sirens off straight away if it's if it's if it's on, it's
being turned off immediately and we will bring the speeds right
down as well. We do keep to the 10 mile an
hour, 2m distance as well as per the Highway Code and what the
VHS have advised. So we do lead by example with
that which we should be leading by example with that.
And we won't actually activate the sirens again until we're
well clear of the horse rider with the blue lights as well.
I mean, there is an argument that, you know, that can affect
horses. In my time in the services, I've
never seen that. I've never had a problem with
using lights around horses. It's always been the noise.
Yes. That has spooked them.
A blue fashion light, I've never seen it causing it unless it
hasn't happened. But in my own experience, it's
never happened. So but we are cautious of that.
We need to be very careful in that if we turn everything off,
we need to think about other road users as well, how they
might interpret us turning everything off.
They might think we we stood down from the call, we're not
going to anything anymore. We're going back to base
whatever when actually we're still going to an incident.
So it's it's a judgement call on the driver at the time.
It's the same 2 with actually with horse boxers as well with
horse boxes. If we're approaching a horse
box, if we, if we see in plenty of time as well, we will
actually again turn off the sirens as well because we are
going to assume it's, it's conveying a horse in the back.
We can't always see that, but we think worst case scenario, what
could be in the horse, probably a horse I imagine.
But what helps with that too for for anyone who drives horse
boxes, is it really helps if you've got horses written on
your vehicle. You might have seen on the back
of it on the back door where it says horses, normally in a
contrasting colour as well. Because from a distance, horse
boxes can look like removal vans or a cargo van or a camper van.
They're actually very Incognito these days, aren't they?
They are, they do look very, very similar, especially with
the modern styling that goes into these things.
So if you if you've got a horse box and you haven't got horses
on the back and front of it, I would strongly advise you to do
so because that will help us avoid startling your horse or
horses in your vehicle when we go past it.
Mike, do you know if accidents on the road with horses are on
the increase? Is this something you're seeing
more of? Because I seem to see more and
more articles in the newspapers and online on social media
about, you know, collisions with horses and tractors, cars and
horses, you know, and all these terrible stories.
And I wonder if there's a link towards this on the increase.
We had a sport de Clancy during the pandemic during Coke because
people were obviously at home, they weren't out about driving.
But now since we've come the other side of the pandemic and
people are going back to work now as well, especially this
this year, the last financial year, people will be encouraged
back into work, aren't they? There's so many days a week.
So there's an increased traffic flow with that.
So that's probably what's led to an increase in instance as well
is that they increased volume of traffic.
And you know, I've seen it many times where people are just so
impatient around horses and horse riders.
To them, it's an inconvenience. You're in my way.
When in actual fact you've got equal right to be there.
And actually, people need to hear that, don't they?
Like you say, that's spreading the awareness to motorists on
social media and trying to reach them to tell them actually
horses do deserve to be there. They're allowed to lawfully be
riding on the roads. And Mike, before you go, we've
talked about what to do in the moments, but what happens after,
And I know your job is very much to act in the moment and to save
lives and to respond quickly. But you mentioned about the
aftercare in terms of what the ambulance staff do.
What do you have any recommendations for what people
should do if they've been in a horse riding accident or an
accident with their horses, in terms of the recovery
afterwards? Yeah.
So if we, if we go back to the start of it, so said about
remaining calm, didn't we, when it all happens and obviously,
you know, making the phone call telling us what's happened and
we're now attending the scene. So when we attend the scene, we
will go through our assessments. We'll, we'll obviously, you
know, treat initial injuries and wounds and any other medical
conditions from there. What's likely to happen,
particularly in case of a fall from a horse or you had a
crushing injury, it's very likely you're going to be
stabilised by the cushions. On seeing the Panamax and the
Ecas, they'll end up using spinal bores, neck collars and
potentially even a pelvic brace as well.
If you've got a potentially A pelvic fracture, that is a very
serious injury to have. So if you've got a lot of pain
in your pelvic area, again, please don't move.
A pelvic break can cause really bad internal bleeding as well
and you could actually die of internal bleeding in a matter of
minutes from that. So, but we can apply obviously
equipment and, and, and drugs etcetera to combat that.
Now what will happen after you've been obviously been
treated and you've been immobilised, you'll also be
transported to the best hospital for your needs.
It might not be the the nearest hospital, it would be the best
hospital to cater for your injuries and your illnesses
etcetera. So it may be a longer journey,
but you're getting the right treatment.
There was a same with with us, it's, it's the right care first
time every time. Same to the the air ambulances
too. They will fly you to the best
hospital for your needs. And obviously in hospital, you
know, we give a hand over to the hospital staff, we explain
what's happened to to you and what we've done so far to deal
with any issues and they'll take it from there.
So that's what's it's called definitive care at that point.
So that's when hospitals then take over and they will then
provide all the treatment and then obviously provide any rehab
as well as part of that healing process.
And they're the best ones really to then advise and what to do
after the the events, what you've been released from
hospital, you've been discharged.
I think most of the time it's going because, oh, rest up,
isn't it? Don't do anything for six weeks.
And they sit on the sofa and watch some television versus do
some, do some, some binge watching on YouTube or
something. It'd be something like that.
But as I was saying goes, you pull the horse, get back in the
saddle, don't you? You do get back in the saddle.
So I don't want people to be put off by what happens to them
because I'm pretty sure they'd miss it, wouldn't they?
I know I'd miss it if I didn't ride again.
I wouldn't miss it terribly. So it's just about being a bit
more careful. But The thing is, you'll go back
into writing obviously with a bit more aware, a bit more
knowledge of what could happen and what you can do about it
next time around. We always learn, don't we?
But also through experience, we learn most of the time.
I think we all feel reassured knowing it's yourself and your
team, that they're ready and waiting if anything were to
happen. You know, such clear and
confident decision making, such reassuring words and actually
listening to you talk, giving us all that feeling of actually
thinking we could have some power over what happens to us if
we are better prepared. So thank you so much for all
your top tips and for giving us an insight into your working
life that is fascinating. Knowing what influence crews
have to deal with as well and and the challenges that you face
for those who want to find out any more about your campaign or
get in touch, how can they do that?
The best way to do that is to go onto the BHS's website.
They're they're heavy promoting Project Pacer at the moment and
obviously I'm doing some more articles coming up soon as well.
The next article I'm producing is on about CPR and use of
defibrillators, but that's not being released until next
spring. Just quite a large article that
couldn't fit into the next issue, so it's coming out in
spring. Fantastic, Mike.
Thank you so much for coming on Curious Equestrian for all your
time and expertise. You're very welcome, thanks for
having me on the show.