A YOUNG girl who sustained a serious brain injury after a fall from her horse has made a miraculous recovery.
Senara Wilton, from Hamsterley, Bishop Auckland, was midway through her weekly horse-riding lesson in Hunwick when she fell during a canter, but instead of landing on the ground, her boot got caught in her stirrup and she was left hanging upside down.
Her parents looked on in horror as the horse proceeded to gallop across the arena with seven-year-old Senara still attached to the stirrup, and they rushed over to help her.
Recalling the incident, which happened on 30 August 2023, Senara’s mother Pauline Wilton, 46, said: “I assume the horse got spooked by the fact that something was hanging by his legs and then started galloping.
“Eric, my husband, said he remembered seeing the horse’s hooves kick Senara’s helmet multiple times before it came off.
“When we got to her she was breathing but it was laboured breathing. We rang 999 and while we were on the phone she stopped breathing and Eric did CPR for several minutes.”
Just before paramedics from the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) arrived on scene, Senara thankfully began breathing again, and shortly afterwards a helicopter from the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) landed in a field nearby
Pauline said: “The paramedics had just got there when the air ambulance came sweeping over and I remember thinking, is that for Senara?”
Upon arrival, GNAAS paramedic Hollie Smith and doctor Chris Smith found Senara lying face down with a significant head injury and she was unresponsive.
Hollie said: “It was clear she was in a critical condition, and we needed to deliver a pre-hospital anaesthetic to protect her brain. We transferred Senara onto an ambulance stretcher and administered an anaesthetic just 30 minutes after her initial injury.
“With injuries like Senara’s, every minute counts, and without interventions like these, her brain could have continued to swell and result in further damage.”
Senara was loaded into the aircraft and accompanied by her mother who held her hand for the duration of the flight to the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle.
Hollie added: “During our journey to the hospital, we continued to provide care, administering medication to help reduce swelling in her brain. We landed on the helipad on the roof of the RVI, where we were met by the hospital’s fire team, who assisted us in getting Senara to the emergency department, where a full medical team was ready to receive her.
“The journey from the incident to the RVI took nine minutes; a journey which would have taken 50 minutes by road.”
Senara had suffered multiple bleeds on her brain, and one of her teeth was kicked out, while another tooth was wobbly.
An emergency operation was performed to relieve the pressure on her brain, and she underwent work to repair soft tissue damage inside of her mouth.
She was closely monitored in intensive care for 48 hours as it’s common for brains to swell following a head injury and this can lead to increased pressure inside the skull.
Pauline said: “The human impact as a parent is massive but there’s nothing you can do in that period of time apart from waiting.
“There were a few days trying to get her off being sedated, and I vividly remember she did eventually get off the ventilator, and was in ICU all week, and then we were moved down to the ward and were there for another six weeks on the neuro ward.
“The initial prognosis, after reviewing the scans, was that they didn’t think she would walk or talk again.
“They thought she would have issues with grabbing things, and talked to me about dystonia, which is when you have muscle spasms.
“When she was moving around in ICU her left side moved around quite a lot whereas her right side just didn’t move, and you could see both sets of arms would spasm and seize up.”
Senara left hospital in October 2023, just a few days before Halloween, and has made a miraculous recovery according to her doctors.
Pauline said: “Her recovery has been amazing. She struggles a little bit with her movement but to anyone else physically she is entirely back to normal.
“She’s back to gymnastics, swimming and karate. It was a big milestone when she got into swim club before the accident, and about a year later she got back into swim club again.”
Senara is now aged nine and she’s since visited GNAAS’ base near Eaglescliffe, with her parents, and met Hollie and Chris who gave them a tour of their facilities, including a look inside the helicopter she was flown in.
Pauline said: “It was really lovely for us to visit. It was interesting and insightful but also amazing to meet the people who saved Senara’s life.
“We’re very aware that without them we might not have a daughter anymore.”
Hollie said: “I thought about Senara frequently after the incident, reflecting on the hard work of the pre-hospital teams to stabilise her for transfer to the RVI, and I often wondered about her recovery.
“It was an overwhelming and heartwarming experience to see Senara walking back into our airbase, especially after witnessing her so unwell the last time we met.
“She is a delightful, caring, chatty, and inquisitive young girl. It fills me with immense pride to know that the efforts of our service on that day played a vital role in keeping this beautiful family together and happy, it is one of the greatest achievements of my career.”
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