Jockey Jason Taylor has left hospital and is continuing his recovery at home following the serious injuries he suffered in a spine-chilling incident behind the starting gates at the Gold Coast on February 13
Taylor’s mount, Final Ascent, reared without warning behind the barriers before the fourth race and fell back onto Taylor who sustained multiple rib fractures, a punctured lung, bleeding on the lungs and facial injuries in the incident.
The good news is that Taylor is now on the mend.
“I’m feeling really good,” said Taylor. “I’ve been very positive right from the start actually.
“When I came to … and I was on the ground … I knew I had done serious damage and I was sort of gasping for every bit of oxygen I could get, but somehow your body goes into survival mode. I was thinking I have got to breath just to pull me through this.
“It is just amazing how your brain does go into survival mode. It went through my head then that if I panic, I will lose oxygen and if I lose oxygen I don’t know if I would make it.
“I thought I have got to put that thought out of my head and get whatever oxygen into my lungs. The slightest bit would be enough to keep me going.
“The paramedics and even the barrier staff pretty much saved my life out there. Those paramedics do a marvellous job … an absolutely marvellous job!
“Then, when they were stabilising me in hospital, I was thinking … oh no, this is not good, but then I thought, you know what … at the end of the day I’ve made it. I’m going to be ok. I’m going to recover from this.
“Since then, I have kept a positive outlook on it the whole time although, obviously, I have had some rough days.
“I got out of hospital late last week,” continued Taylor.
“My lung collapsed while I was in hospital … and, strange as it might sound, they thought I might do better out of hospital where I would have to use my lungs a bit more.
“I think the doctors thought that being at home and being able to walk a bit … up and down the stairs or just walking around the house … would work the lungs and just help the lungs to function better than lying around in a hospital bed. There’s not a lot of moving around in there.
“I’m home now and I’ve been given all of these exercises for breathing.
“There have been a lot of pain-killers. I broke a lot of ribs. There were a lot of fractures and they said I had to keep the pain under control because I had to be able to cough the blood up and I needed to be able to breath properly.
“I was told that if I was feeling the pain with my ribs, I would be shallow breathing and I would then cause more damage to my lungs. So, they said the idea was for super-strong pain-killers and deep breathing.
“The ribs should heal quite quickly, and they are very confident that I will make a full recovery.
“I did have to go back in today for them to rescan my lungs again. They are obviously looking at my right lung which is the one that partially collapsed. They just want to see how it is healing … because I had a small hole in my right lung and it had a lot of fluid and blood in it.
“I will know more tomorrow when I get the result of that scan as to how the lung is going.
“I think, to me, it was just a freak accident because Final Ascent is the quietest, loveliest little horse. She is lovely to ride. She was beautiful going around to the barriers and the was no sign of what was to come.
“She obviously took fright at something behind the barriers, reared and just lost her footing … and it was just unfortunately where I landed and where she landed because she ended up rolling on top of me.
“it was just a complete, random accident,” concluded Taylor.
