A horse attacked me. My friend didn't even call an ambulance

A woman faces losing her arm after being tossed about by a rogue horse and dumped at home by a so-called friend.

Jacqui Kent's life was turned upside down in November last year when she reluctantly agreed to assist a mate whose horse she had been helping to break in at an agistment property along the Mornington Peninsula, south-east of Melbourne.

The friend had been working at the property three days a week in a contra deal that saw her obtain discounted agistment for her own horse.

Ms Kent told Daily Mail Australia she was suffering from a broken foot when she agreed to help out her friend.

Until then, Ms Kent claimed she had only ever helped water her mate's horses, but this time she asked her to help place rugs on them. 

In what is in the process of becoming a statement of claim lodged by legal firm Arnold Thomas & Becker, Ms Kent claimed she felt pressured to help out despite protesting about her injured foot.

The experienced horse handler said she felt a sense of dread as she noticed the horse's pinned ears and his teeth coming at her.

In a reaction that likely saved her life, Ms Kent draped herself in the rug, but the horse managed to grab her by the neck and pushed her to the ground.

Curled up in the foetal position, she tried to protect her head. 

The gelding picked her up three more times by her shoulder, smashing her into the ground again and again. 

Ms Kent claimed she could hear her friend screaming throughout the attack, but when it was over she did not call her an ambulance. 

Instead, she dropped her off at home. 

'I almost died. My own quick reaction to protect myself is why I am still alive,' Ms Kent said. 

She called an ambulance for herself the next day and later underwent surgery to try and mend her shattered clavicle. 

Subsequent operations have seen plates and metal welded to her bones in an attempt to try and hold them together. 

A synthetic grafting operation was performed in May to try and pull her clavicle back into place and stop it popping out. 

Ms Kent now endures an agonising wait until November when she will learn if she will lose her arm. 

'Surgeons cannot currently do anything – if they remove the plates, everything will fall apart as it’s being held together,' she said.

Ms Kent said she had never heard from her friend or the agistment owner again. 

'I can’t do my own hair anymore and had to shave it off as it was a tangled mess on my head,' she said. 

'I haven’t heard from either of these women since and I have had no apology or help.

'I’ll never truly recover from this. I’m pursuing legal action to seek justice and get an admission that this was not my fault, and to recoup all the medical expenses and ongoing physio that I’ll need to move forward.'

Ms Kent said the agistment owners ought to know the horses on their property and if the person feeding them is experienced enough to handle them.

'You need to have insurance for anyone working with horses on your property, so that you’re covered,' she said. 

'Even people like me, who have been born and raised with horses, can be injured by a horse. This horse had previously tried to attack people and they didn’t tell me, there was no warning. If I’d known, I never would have gone into the paddock.'

Arnold Thomas & Becker lawyer Ciara Smith, who is representing Ms Kent, said her client would struggle with the mental and physical trauma of what happened to her for the rest of her life. 

'The injuries she sustained continued to cause her daily pain and suffering a year later and will be lifelong,' she said. 

'While we understand that animals have a mind of their own and can be unpredictable, this incident could have been completely prevented if Jacqui had been aware of the risks involved with entering this horse’s paddock.

'She was not informed that the horse could be dangerous or volatile and had previously tried to attack people.

'Incidents like these emphasise the importance of agistment and property owners to ensure they are covered by public liability insurance. People also shouldn’t be engaging in verbal or backdoor agreements – there is no protection in these kind of arrangements and it is almost impossible to mitigate risk.'

The matter is expected to hit court in the coming weeks.