Victorian jockey Laura Lafferty has opened up on rebuilding her health and life following a fall that left her in an induced coma.
The 25-year-old fell off The Praised One from the lead of a 1400m race at Ballarat in October, sent tumbling as the rest of the field made its way past her.
Lafferty suffered two collapsed lungs, Grade 4 lacerations to her liver and spleen, severe body bruising, concussion, a broken foot and two broken ribs.
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Lafferty can still recall the “really nice, sunny day” and exactly who she was talking to behind the gates — “then everything changed”.
“The last thing I remember was coming out of the gates and making my way to the front of the field,” she told Racing.com.
“I had thought that the fall had happened 200m out of the gates but I don’t really remember.
“But my horse had shied at something on the inside, and I’d come off the side of it. That’s the last thing I remember.
“I don’t remember making it from Ballarat Racecourse to Ballarat hospital.
“I woke up again at Ballarat Hospital, where they had said they were going to put me in an induced coma, and then obviously don’t remember until I’d woken up in Melbourne Alfred.”
Still “so thankful” for trackside paramedic Mick saving her life, Lafferty said she and her family do not relive the accident itself.
“It’s still pretty new, pretty raw,” she said.
“My biggest challenge is definitely mentally coming to terms with not being able to even run, let alone work.
“That’s why I’m putting steps in place to be able to get through the next 12 months, just doing a course at RMIT, setting those goals, booking physio every week just gets me through every week.
“It’s a mental game at this stage.”
The mind and body are both a work in progress but improvements are clear on the physical front, with Lafferty crediting many people — and one in particular — for her fightback.
“The doctors and specialists have been really happy,” Lafferty said.
“My mum, she’s stayed with me, taken me to all my appointments. She’s just literally done everything so I wouldn’t be as far along in the recovery journey if it weren’t for her.”
Lafferty is aiming to compete in a triathlon midway through next year but horse racing has taken a back seat to a more realistic proposition.
“My goal in regards to horse riding would be get back show jumping in beyond six months,” she said.