July 14, 2008. It was just a normal day at the barn.

I went to where we were keeping the horse my cousin and I were borrowing at the time to go and ride.

He wasn’t acting like himself that day.

Once we got him out of the pasture we walked him up next to a small brown barn. We were getting him ready to ride. We brushed him off and started to grab the things we needed to ride, a blanket, the saddle, and the bridle. As I walked out of the barn and was handing my grandma the blanket to put under the horses’ saddle, he lunged around and bit my left pinky off my hand.

I was in so much shock I couldn’t feel anything that had just happened.

I screamed and ran to my grandpa and told him the horse bit me. He told me to show him my hand, and I did and my finger was gone.

Everyone was in a panic, they were frantically trying to find my finger and get it off the ground. I was in shock and I can’t quite remember what they were doing with the horse. I wasn’t too worried about him. It took a little bit to find the finger and by the time we found it, it had been too late. After we found my finger, we got in the car and rushed to the hospital. We had to go to two different hospitals before I could get helped because the one in Battle Creek didn’t have a hand surgeon, so they sent us to Bronson. At least that's what I remember.

After my surgery, an animal control officer came and talked to me about what had happened. I don't remember what I said to the officer. I remember when I woke up I was confused and didn’t know where I was. That was the only time I had ever had major surgery before. Throughout the day I had many people come and visit me. My 4-H leaders at the time came and visited me,  and they gave me a stuffed bear with a little cowboy hat, belt, and fringe on his arms. My pastor also visited me and he gave me a stuffed dog and it was as soft as a real puppy. Everyone was worried that I may not want to ever have a horse again and that I would be scared of them, but I wasn’t.

Nothing really changed for me. A week or more later I had a fun day for my softball team, and I just went through it like nothing ever happened. The older I got the more normal this became. It never bothered me that I wasn’t the same as all the other kids now. There were challenges I had to face when I was learning things. When I was in third grade and we were learning how to type I had to adjust how I used the keyboard. I also wasn’t able to learn how to do the nines trick that you can use in math.

Something that surprises people when I tell them about what happened is that I still like horses and I still have my own horse, nothing changed for me about the way I felt towards horses.

Everyone that I tell my story to is shocked at how good the surgeon did on my hand, that it looks so natural and like I was born without my finger.  People today are still so surprised when I tell them about what happened and they think that it is cool. People always tell me that they never even noticed and that if I never said anything that they would have never known about it.