Hello! I’m Ashlyn one of Ryleigh’s friends and I’m raising money for her.

On April 12th,2022 a scary accident happened to a beautiful, young lady, named Ryleigh Budde who is only 16 years old. It started off as her and 2 friends went on a trail ride filled with laughs and smiles to a major life changing accident. Ryleigh was on her trusted horse, Big B, riding down a road by her house that she has ridden 100’s of times and her saddle broke (the front rigging dee aka where your girth is put through in a western saddle). Seconds later, after being slung off Big B, Ryleigh was laying on the ground unconscious. Her friend called her mom, Amanda, and then called 911. After the ambulance got there, Ryleigh woke up as they are moving her to an open area for the helicopter. They waited for the helicopter to arrive and air lifted her to the nearest trauma hospital. After what seemed like forever, they made it to Ryleigh and had her in the hospital 12 minutes later. She had made it to Prisma Hospital and they did CT scans, she had a sub-dermal hematoma on her left side of her brain, a skull fracture that went from the back of the skull to the top of her skull on the left side and her brain was experiencing a midline shift from the hematoma and swelling. At that time Ryleigh wasn’t following commands and then they sedated her. They quickly called in Pediatric Neurosurgeon to determine if she needed surgery. She did so they removed a portion of her skull to allow space for swelling and put in two drains. MRI showed some contusions on her frontal lobe and a very small area of ischemia in her cerebellum. With half of her head shaved and stables running from the top of her head to the back and around to her ear, Ryleigh made it out of surgery. The doctors had any idea how she would respond after this surgery.

After surgery she was put in a sedated coma and on a ventilator 12 hours. Luckily she woke up from the surgery. The doctors and nurses were absolutely stunned and said “this is the quickest we’ve ever seen someone come out of a coma and off a vent after this amount of trama. It’s honestly a miracle.” Ryleigh continues to exceed everyone’s expectations and no one can believe how well she is doing!

Ryleigh is one tough cookie and has done so well, but her recovery is no where near close to being done. As of now, her mom Amanda, is not able to work and has to stay with Ryleigh every minute because she can’t do things on her own anymore . This means they are only working off 1 income to pay bills, feed the horses and animals they have rescued for their origination (Spurs and Latigo Ranch Equine Rescue), 2 other children to take care of, and all the medical bills that are coming in to pay.

Not to mention Ryleigh now will be sent to a inpatient rehab in Greenville for a while until she is able to walk , eat , talk better, and bring her back to a 10th grade level of education. She then has to continue an outpatient rehab for a year and doctors are saying she can’t get on a horse for a least a year as well. They will have to put Ryleighs skull back in in approximately a month. This is another potential out of pocket expense for her parents to have to pay.

Ryleigh definitely has a long road ahead of her and she has people supporting her, but now she needs your help as well. Any amount of money matters and they will gratefully appreciate anything you can donate! Thank you so much and we will have lots of updates on how Ryleigh is progressing!