Peter Salathiel's fighting spirit inspires

By Travis King
Updated November 7 2012 - 7:08am, first published February 21 2012 - 11:57am
BACK ON TRACK: Harness trainer-driver Peter Salathiel walks Giggling Girl.  Picture: JIM ALDERSEY
BACK ON TRACK: Harness trainer-driver Peter Salathiel walks Giggling Girl. Picture: JIM ALDERSEY

Goornong harness racing driver Peter Salathiel counts himself incredibly lucky to have escaped with a collapsed lung, broken ribs, nerve damage and bruising from a racing fall at Junortoun’s Lord’s Raceway.Driving his horse Sherwood at a BHRC trial on Sunday, February 12, Salathiel was sitting in second place when the horse fell without warning causing a three-horse fall in which the 53-year-old was seriously injured.The two other drivers involved in the fall escaped serious injury, with Toolleen’s Nigel Milne suffering a broken radius and bruised ribs and Bruce Morgan walking away unharmed.However, Salathiel was in the Intensive Care Unit at Bendigo Hospital for two days after the crash.He returned home late last week – three broken ribs in his back, nerve damage to his neck and a loss of feeling in his right hand “like pins and needles”, but he could vividly recall the incident.“My horse fell without warning, usually they give some indication that something’s going to go wrong,” Salathiel said.“But, I knew I was in trouble, she went straight into the ground and I stepped on her rump with my right foot and my left foot had just touched the ground when the horse that was two behind me hit me.“If that horse hadn’t got me the damage would’ve been minimal, but the one that ploughed into me from behind caused the problems.“It stepped straight through me and I rolled under it. A 400kg horse travelling at 40km/h takes a bit of shouldering off.”An ambulance was called immediately, but Salathiel’s wife Beatrice arrived quicker than the paramedics.“It seemed a long time, but I’m not really sure. I couldn’t move, so where I landed was where I stayed,” Salathiel said.“My lung had collapsed, but nobody really knew that it had. I was starting to really panic I thought ‘I’m going to die here in a minute’. “I could see my horse laying out behind my legs and I was thinking ‘don’t you dare get up and stand on me’ and, thankfully, she laid there with me.”Salathiel won his first race as a 16-year-old in Boort and he has no second thoughts about wanting to get back in the sulky as soon as possible. “If you think that way you shouldn’t be out there,” Salathiel said. Salathiel expressed his gratitude to the people who enquired about his health and who have offered assistance.His horse Sherwood, will have a spell in the paddock for three months after suffering knee injuries from the fall.

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