Maureen McDonough Mo McDonough

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On Friday, June 12th sometime after 5 p.m. Maureen 'Mo' was in a terrible horse accident.  The whole family was out with the horses and Mo had decided to ride Scuba Diving Doc (aka Doc).  A little background on Doc:  Doc suffered a bad accident involving his front left leg in June of 2019 and had just recently started back to work to strengthen his muscles to get back to being a healthy, sound riding mount.  

Doc is a lovely tall (16.3H) dark brown gelding.  He's also been very easy to get back under saddle and has been a perfect gentleman.  He hasn't been spooky or too high energy and he's had a very good attitude getting back into work.  He's done nothing that would lead Mo to believe the events of the day that had yet  to unfold could actually happen.  

Mo tacked him up and lunged him around a bit to make sure he was sound going walk/trot/canter both directions.  She mounted and was reaching down to re-adjust her stirrup and was sitting up when she was whacked in the chin by him going straight up.  She felt another whack and then blacked out.  When she awoke, she was on the ground and was unable to feel or move her body.  She was completely paralyzed.  

Within moments, Leigh (a friend and horse trainer), Will, and their neighbor Randy were by Mo's side comforting her waiting for the paramedics to arrive.  It was the scariest moment of Mo's life.  Not being able to move or feel her legs, arms or body was terrifying.  The feeling and ability to move her arms came back quickly; however, with extraordinary pain from her elbows to her finger tips.  This is a well-known phenomenon with the specific spinal cord injury she suffered and is called central cord syndrome.  The nerve pain is expected to go away, but it's unknown when and is currently being controlled by a nerve pain management drug.  

The extent of her injuries are:  spinal cord injury with bruising on the cervical spinal cord at C5, 6 and 7; nerve pain in both arms and hands; pooling of blood (11x7x2 cm) in her left glute muscle; severe hematoma from her left glute up along the back of the hip, pelvis and sacrum; mild concussion and lots of other general bruising and muscle soreness.  

By Friday evening, she had all feeling back in all extremities, however, still suffered from some weakness.  As of today, Wednesday, June 17th, she has all strength back in all extremities and is able to walk slowly with assistance.  

She was put on a blood pressure increasing drug protocol in the ICU to increase the blood flow to her spinal cord to minimize additional damage and is being monitored for other signs of neurological deficits, which to this date, none have surfaced!  

The next step in her healing will be a spinal surgery to remove the 2 discs pressing on her spinal cord and then fuse her 3 vertebra together with a titanium plate and screws.  

Maureen/Mo loves receiving personal messages of well wishes on her phone and via Facebook, so please feel free to reach out to her!!  We will keep this site updated with the latest information as she continues her journey to healing.