Mood cautiously optimistic after meeting with Corps, NLLD exec
May 20, 2011
Brenda White
May 24, 2011
Brita Theriot is one cowgirl that does not surrender. She did not quit returning to the things she loves. She definitely did not give in to brain injuries that physicians said she would never overcome.
One year after being thrown from a horse she was attempting to mount outside the Houma-Terrebonne Airport rodeo arena, Theriot drove her blue pickup truck to the Acadian Ambulance headquarters Friday, at Bond Street, where she delivered a cake, hugs and words of appreciation to the paramedics who came to her assistance one evening 365 days earlier.
“She had two bleeds in the brain [and] the prognosis was initially that she was not going to survive,” said Acadian Operations Supervisor Bruce Boudreaux. “She has had a 100 percent recovery. You don’t see that too much out of a person who had that type of head injury.”
According to paramedics who were at the scene, and Theriot recounting what friends and relatives have told her of the incident, the 46-year-old single mother of a 16-year-old boy was at an evening rodeo drill team practice.
Theriot was preparing to get on a horse she had not ridden previously. She got her left foot into the stirrup and began to swing her right leg over the saddle when the animal backed away and bucked to the right. The sudden movement caused her to cartwheel in the opposite direction and land injured on the ground.
“I crashed on my right side and broke [almost] all the bones on my right side,” Theriot said. “The head injuries, there are two of them.” She pointed to two spots indicating her left frontal lobe and temple area of the skull.
Paramedics Carrie Villatoro and John Carroll arrived on the scene that evening and found Theriot bleeding from her mouth, nose and ears. Being in a state of shock, she was combative and the first responders had to restrain her so she would not harm herself any further.
“It was a little chaotic,” Carroll said. “I recall there was a crowd of people and they were having to hold her down because she was confused. Our goal was to get her secure and protect her from herself.”
Paramedics acted swiftly and transported Theriot to Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center. At that facility, she was stabilized then airlifted to LSU Interim Hospital in New Orleans.
Glenn Naquin, who now works as a paramedic instructor, was the flight medic that stayed with Theriot from the time she left Houma to her being turned over to doctors in New Orleans.
“At the time we flew her to New Orleans, the prognosis was that she would have the mentality of a 5-year-old for the rest of her life,” Naquin said. “To make that kind of recovery, in a relatively short period of time, is remarkable.”
“Normally, when there is a horse I do not know or am not familiar with, or in a location like we were in a public location, I would have put a helmet on myself,” Theriot said. “This horse must have made me think nothing would have bothered him on the ground.
“Having been around horses all my life [her father is a retired equine veterinarian], I am very judgmental about that,” she continued. “I don’t remember what happened, but for me to be willing as a single mom, in a place with a whole bunch of kids around, willing to get on a horse outside an arena, no round pen, I had to feel comfortable with him.
“So, who knows? Was it his back? Did something scare him? We’ll never know,” she added.
Theriot is a Houma resident and an experienced riding instructor. She cannot explain what happened in the accident or how she made her remarkable recovery. She simply knows that she appreciates all those that have helped her during the past year.
Yes, Theriot has been back on a horse since her accident. “I had to,” she said.
One year after suffering a severe brain injury when she was thrown from a horse, Brita Theriot hugs Acadian Ambulance paramedic Glenn Naquin and offers thanks to all medical professionals she credits with saving her life. MIKE NIXON
