Horse riding becomes therapy for stroke victim

By Peggy Ussery

Published: July 20, 2008

With a sling on one arm, Carol Lynn Whitman carefully walks up the steps and approaches Blaze.

Her son, Dustin, holds the horse’s reins while husband Mike Whitman and Southern Cross Ranch trainer Chuck Jones help her balance. Blaze, a blond quarter horse, stands between two sets of mobile home steps as Whitman gets situated in the saddle. Four or five steps are all that stood between the horse and rider. A short distance, but such a long way for Carol Lynn, who grabs the reins and gives Blaze the command to go.

More than two years have passed since Carol Lynn suffered a massive stroke on Jan. 16, 2006. She underwent surgery at Southeast Alabama Medical Center to stop the bleeding in her brain.

“I prepared myself for my wife to die,” Mike Whitman said.

Instead, the stroke left her right side paralyzed. She spent two-and-a-half months in hospitals and rehabilitation centers from Dothan to Birmingham. When she finally went home, doctors gave little hope for a meaningful recovery.

Carol Lynn relied on a wheelchair to get around or a walker. She spent most of her time in the den of the Whitman’s Ozark home, staring out of a set of sliding glass doors into the family’s back yard.

“She got to the point where all she wanted to do was sit in a recliner,” Mike said. “She was backsliding ... I done a whole lot of praying on how to get her out of this.”

Having grown up riding horses, Mike decided to give his wife something to look at from the family’s den in hopes of spurring her recovery. He built an enclosure, and a friend loaned him a quarter horse. Carol Lynn began watching the horse. Within three weeks, she got out of the recliner, balanced on her walker and crossed the yard with a back pocket full of carrots.

Carol Lynn had never been on a horse in her life.

Mike kept his friend’s horse for six months, and Carol Lynn spent her days feeding it carrots. Mike decided to buy a quarter horse and later a Tennessee walking horse. The family began to go to rodeos. Then, Mike decided it was time to get Carol Lynn on a horse.

He sought a safe place for her to ride where trained people could help her. At first he looked into hippotherapy, a practice where a licensed therapist uses a horse as a tool in therapy.

But the only place around — Sumlar Therapy Services in Ozark — only serves children. At the time, Mike couldn’t find a therapeutic riding center in the area. Kristin Sumlar, a physical therapist and executive director of Sumlar Therapy Services, referred the Whitmans to Southern Cross Ranch near Headland.

Southern Cross Ranch is not an accredited center for therapeutic riding, although trainer and co-owner Chuck Jones said the ranch is looking into getting accreditation. There’s no hippotherapy done there, and there are no therapists on staff. But it gave Carol Lynn that safe place Mike wanted. She’s been coming once a week for the last year to ride.

She still has trouble with her right side and wears the sling to keep her right arm from hanging. It still takes her time to verbalize her thoughts. But she’s riding.

“I’ve seen big improvements,” Carol Lynn said. “At first, I couldn’t sit up. Now I can.”

She’s all over the house now, according to Mike, and she has no fear when she gets in a saddle. Mike’s a nervous wreck.

“I just ride and ride until I get tired of riding,” Carol Lynn said. “I like having the horse because, well, horses are pretty animals. It helps me with balance, and it strengthens my legs.”

She doesn’t think about the initial prognosis from doctors who thought she would never regain her mobility.

“I proved them wrong,” she said.

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For more information ...
Lazy H Riding Center
14716 E. County Road 4, between Slocomb and Hartford
(334) 886-3002

Southern Cross Ranch
6215 County Road # 55, near Headland
http://www.thesoutherncrossranch.com

Sumlar Therapy Services
193 Sam Lisenby Road, Ozark
(334) 445-6336