Eventing Nation: Update on Silva Martin

Silva Martin, dressage rider and wife of Boyd Martin, was hospitalized after a riding accident yesterday. Sally Spickard reports that she is in stable condition.

From Sally via Eventing Nation:

Yesterday, we reported that Silva Martin had been involved in a freak accident leading to her hospitalization. Boyd immediately left Tallahassee, where he was slated to compete at Red Hills, and drove to Delray Beach Medical Center. This morning, he released the following statement and update on Silva’s condition on his blog:

Yesterday morning, March 5th, my wife Silva Martin was riding in her dressage facility in Wellington, Florida when she had a freak fall from a horse that she was training. The horse had an almost comical trip and Silva bumped her head on the horse’s neck on the way down, and hit the ground unconscious which was followed shortly by a seizure.

 Silva’s trusty crew of girls at the barn jumped into action and paramedics were on the scene immediately. Silva was airlifted to the ER at the Delray Medical Center in nearby Delray Beach.

 So far CT scans show some bleeding on her brain, which remains stable scan after scan. Doctors are opting not to do surgery at this time in hopes that Silva’s body reabsorbs the blood.

 At the moment the doctors are hoping that slowly but surely she will come back to her senses as her body heals from the injury. Her current condition is a deep sleep, and doctors expect that it will take a few days for her to be more responsive and alert.

 I’d like to thank the thousands of well-wishers who have been keeping Silva in their thoughts and prayers. Since the tragedy of Courtney King Dye, Silva has worn her Charles Owen helmet every day and doctors assured us that if she hadn’t had her helmet on in this instance the conversation we’d be having would be extremely different.

  -Boyd

As of right now, Phillip Dutton is not riding any of Boyd’s horses at Red Hills, so it appears that he plans to still compete this weekend. Stay tuned for more updates from Red Hills.

Social media has been overflowing with well wishes from the equine community. You can send a get well wish of your own to Boyd and Silva by posting on their respective Facebook pages ([Boyd] [Silva]), their blog, or on the comments here.

Here is a smattering of well-wishes that have popped up over the last few hours:

We will continue to bring you updates on Silva’s condition as they are received. In the meantime, we are all pulling hard for Boyd and Silva.