After several days without much progress, Cassandra Kahle thrilled everyone at her hospital bedside about 9:30 this morning when she opened her eyes.
And that’s not all she did. The 29-year-old professional rider, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a fall during a jump-off last month, went on to demonstrate that she is on the road back to consciousness.
The physical therapy crew at UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Fla., sat her up and started giving commands. After she opened her eyes, they said, “Can you open your mouth?” She opened her mouth.
“Can you stick your tongue out?” they suggested, and she did. Next, they gave her a washcloth and asked her to wipe her mouth, then give the cloth to her father. She was able to follow the orders.
“The doctors are like, `That is really impressive.’ They’re super, super thrilled,” said Emil Spadone who owns Redfield Farm in Ocala, Fla, and Califon, N.J., where Cassie works.
“The doctors feel this was the first day she was starting to get conscious. She’s doing amazing. and the doctors are so impressed with her, but she’s not totally awake,” Emil cautioned.
“They call her semi-conscious. It takes a little time, but what a great day today. It was an amazing day. We always had the faith, but it just kind of renews it when you have a day like today.”
Emil recalled that she gave a thumbs-up and a peace sign to him and her father last week, but then she didn’t do it again, which was disheartening.
“It was so up and down for a little bit there,” Emil conceded, while citing the “amazing nurses and doctors” at Shand for all they’ve done. But it hasn’t been easy for those around Cassie.
“I do think positive, but it’s taken its toll.”
On Thursday, Cassie, her family and Emil will fly to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, where she will begin the rehabilitation prcess.
“They’ve helped a lot of horse people. Everybody said it’s the place to go. She’ll start with a Disorders of Consciousness program to get her fully awake,” Emil related.
Next, “they start the physical therapy part for another four to six weeks. After that, she can have more (therapy) or be an outpatient.”
Emil noted when the people at Shepherd were told how well Cassie did today, they said “`It looks like she’s already beginning to wake up.’ If she winds up fully waking up in a week, they’ll immediately graduate her to the next step. As soon as she’s ready, she moves to the therapy part.”
When it’s time for her next move, after the end of the winter show circuit, “We’ll be heading for New Jersey,” said Emil, thinking she can go to the Kessler Institute of Rehabilitation in West Orange as either an inpatient or outpatient.
Meanwhile, Shepherd has strict Covid rules, only allowing one person to be in a patient’s room each week. At the moment, the thought is that Cassie’s mother, Natasha Brash, will alternate with Emil. At Shand, Natasha stayed with her daughter through the night, while Emil had the day shift and would leave at 10 p.m.
As always when there’s a crisis, the horse show community pitches in.
A GoFundMe page to cover medical and rehab expenses for Cassie has been started by Liz Schindler McFadden. Click here to donate.
Emil anticipates GoFundMe could cover the $15,000 needed for the plane to get Cassie to Atlanta. But he hopes his insurance and workman’s compensation can pay for much of Cassie’s costs, though these situations are always tremendously expensive and not everything needed can be anticipated at this point.
If money is left over, it will be donated elsewhere when Cassie can help make the decision of where it should go, but Emil needs to find out the rules of how that’s handled with GoFundMe.
Danielle Torano organized an effort to send food to Cassie’s nurses as a thank you for her care.Those who want to contribute can click on this link. However, do not send food to Shand after tomorrow (Wednesday Feb. 8). We will let you know if the program will continue at Shepherd.
Cassie in action. (Photo © by Nancy Jaffer)
In case you’re not up to speed on what’s happening here, this is the backstory on Cassie, culled from previous reports:
Last Thursday night, she “cracked her eyes open and stared right at me,” said Emil.
“Then she followed the command of the thumbs up and two fingers.” That was something she was able to do earlier in the week, even though she hadn’t opened her eyes at that point.
“It was an emotional moment,” Emil noted.
“That was the up. The down is she hasn’t done it again since.”
He had mentioned earlier on Thursday that because she had aspiration pneumonia from her breathing tube, her infection was likely to slow down her response time. However, he reported, her cough is almost completely gone.
Shands Hospital quickly addressed the change in Cassie’s situation with antibiotics when she was diagnosed with pneumonia.
Being young and strong are factors in Cassie’s favor. It’s tough to take the situation in stride, especially after how well she reacted on Wednesday, but doctors advise patience.
Cassie is as talented on a hunter as she is on a jumper. (Photo © by Nancy Jaffer)
For those who don’t know what happened, Cassie and her mount, Heviola, fell in the 1.40-meter Classic at the HITS show in Ocala.The 10-year-old Dutchbred mare was unhurt, but Cassie suffered the TBI in her fall.
Cassie is an accomplished rider who won the $100,000 Grand Prix de Penn National last year and the World Champion Hunter Rider Pro Challenge at the Capital Challenge Horse Show in 2019.
She was going fast in the jump-off at HITS when two distances to the next jump appeared. One was an inside turn, the other was a longer distance.
“I was watching and saw both distances,” said Emil.
“I saw the flyer; she was trying to fit in the shorter one, the horse was trying to pick up on the longer one and left early.”
The horse fell and her rider “got catapulted off the side.”
She hit her head just above her temple and left eye and back to the side; that’s where the contusions are on the scan, according to Emil, adding her only other injury is a big bruise on her side.
Emil noted that like every other rider, Cassie has fallen more than once.
“She always gets up and dusts off her pants and says `Let’s try again.’ She’s tough.”
But this time, it didn’t happen that way.
“It was really a miscommunication. It wasn’t Heviola’s fault and it wasn’t Cassie’s fault,” said Emil.
