David France

On Saturday, October 1st, while my father-in-law, David, and I were on horseback, about 5-6 miles back in the Wyoming high country looking for deer, we had a terrible accident. At about 1 p.m., while going up a steep trail, David's horse slipped back on its rear end, right at the edge of a cliff. He tried to lean forward and save it, but it was just too far gone. His horse fell backward on top of him, and together they tumbled down a 140-160 foot rock cliff.

Only by a miracle of God was he not dead. Amazingly, neither was his horse, which was still rideable. But David was banged up in a bad way. He could stand, but not walk. I carried him up out of the drainage onto the trail, and managed to get him back on his horse. Another set of hunters saw it happen and beat feet over to us, and let me use their sat phone, as we were at least 40 miles on an awful dirt road from phone service. When I called 911, they said that the ambulance couldn't get to us, and if he was already on a horse and stable enough to move, we could get him out before search and rescue could get there. So together, we carefully rode out to the truck, and I drove him out of the mountains, being careful on the bumps, and got him to a hospital.

They found he had multiple broken bones, including broken C6 vertebrae, nose, right wrist, and a fractured pelvis. His knee had been dislocated and subsequently/accidentally relocated when I picked him up and put him in the truck. Additionally, he received a lot of stitches for multiple large lacerations on his head. Worst of all, they found that where his neck was broken, the bone that broke had caused an arterial dissection, with an occlusion in the artery. This means that the artery was damaged during the injury, and in the process of healing itself, fully closed off the artery with a clot. Thankfully, other arteries supply blood flow to the brain and can make up for this closed-off artery, but the danger is if a part of the clot breaks off and goes up to the brain, potentially causing a stroke. The initial hospital stabilized him and life-flighted him to the University of Utah hospital, where he is currently under the care of numerous specialists.

Any donations would be greatly appreciated; David does not have insurance and will be out of work for an unknown amount of time. If you are unable to make any donations, prayers for a safe recovery would also be appreciated. Thank you