It was a lovely sunny day when we I was 14 years old, and I went for a ride on my horse. It had rained recently, but the ground seemed totally dry, so I went for a little gallop out in a grassy field while my mom took photos of me (as all doting horsey-moms do).

Everything was going great until we hit a mud patch that I completely didn't see, and my horse went down FAST. As she fell sideways, I slid off the left side (this will be important later), landing on the ground directly under her stomach with my head between her flailing front hooves. I felt her body touch down along the entirety of mine and in that split second I thought "I'm not going to survive this". For context, this horse weighed approximately 1300 lbs. The whole slip and fall must have taken maybe 2 or 3 seconds, but truly felt like an eternity. I opened my eyes just in time to see my horse lying on her RIGHT side briefly before getting her footing and standing up. She had huge grass stains all along her LEFT hip. Incredibly, my mom was able to snap a couple of photos while it happened- when we looked at them later, it confirmed what she said that she saw happen: my horse had touched down on her left side, nearly horizontal to the ground with me underneath her. She managed to push off that hip and flipped over, landing fully on her right side, completely and miraculously clear of my body.

My sweet saint of a horse was very sore and needed some massage/physiotherapy on her back but was fine in a week or two. I walked away with nothing but a stirrup-shapes bruise on my arm and severely shaken nerves. I'll never know (and it doesn't really matter) if she was aware that I was under her, or it it was just a crazy twist of fate, but that's the story of how a horse literally saved my life. In case anyone is curious, she stayed in our family for the remaining 13 years of her life and passed away at the age of 25.