This is the first time I got trampled by a bull. I rode it all the way.   I just remember I was getting up and I looked up and that bull was right on me. I flattened right down and he caught my head and stomped on my shirt, and passed right over top of me.  I rode it all the way, but I think I just won my entry fee back is about all.

If you ride a bull you are usually always in the money, because they are awful hard to stay on.  I tried the other events: saddle bronc, bareback, steer dogging at Carl Riley’s place.  I mainly rode bulls about four or five times a year. Roy (my older brother) rode saddle bronc about a show every week for about 5-6-7 years.  I didn’t go with him too much he was on his own.  I would be working on a ranch someplace.

I rode in the Evanston, Wyoming show, and if they were close I would get off, enter, and go ride in them.
 

40 years later

I was right out here in the correl. I had old Gold saddled up, and with my bad hip I kind of needed a crutch.  He was such a tall horse; I had a bucket there, and turned it upside down. I was right out underneath the shed, and I put my leg over him, and I just had it up in the air, and over the saddle. He just moved because of the rattle of the bucket. I just kind of swung down; I missed it anyway I still had a hold of the horn.

I hit the ground with this foot here, and I didn’t think I hit it very hard, but it just crunched that knee.  All the stuff in there was all broke up in there, so that’s when I went to Dr. Nakano. 

When I was out there I kind of yelled at your mother, and of course she couldn’t hear me out there and I waited for 30 minutes or so to see if anything would happen. To top it off my foot was turned to the side, twisted clear around because it was broke off of this knee. I had my spurs on, so I kicked on my spurs and lined all it up with my leg. I had it all lined up and I released it and it went back in. It looked like it was all lined up. I couldn’t walk on it of course; I scooted on my rear end backwards into the house.

It was about 10 o’clock in the morning; we called up the hospital and says: we have an emergency I broke my knee. He said: we don’t have any doctors here you are going to have to wait until one o’clock before you come in.  I laid out on that pillow from 10 to one o’clock; before I went into the hospital. I just drug around.  I had my crutches by then and I knew how to use them real well, he laughed.

We got in there and Dr. Nakano happened to be on call at Saint Mary’s hospital or the Community hospital.  He happened to be there and looked at it and said: Well, we could put a cast on it; you have shattered it, it is broken in about three or four places. You will be back in about two years wanting a knee replacement, but if I put a plate in there it will probably last five to seven years and then you will have to come in and get a knee replacement.  So I said: I want the plate.  He screwed it all in and I was on crutches again for awhile. He put a plate on the side and put seven big screws in there. 

Before I tell you the next story I was going to show you the screw.  It was a big titanium . . . that was the name of that prosthesis that the bone grows onto that is porous and down in there and the bone grew to it that Dr. Crane and the sports doctor.

Well anyway, Dr. Nakano put that plate on there and drilled a hole through it, he put seven screws in it up and down this side (right side). You wouldn’t believe unless you seen it, but those darn screws where that long (five inches). I felt them on this side (left side).  You can still feel them and they kept bothering me when I ride the horse too long. I would get big black and blue spots where them screws would poke out. One day when he was checking me over I said, ‘can you pull these screws out of there, would that be alright?  They really bother me when I take a long ride when it hits the saddle.’ He said, ‘sure, you’re all healed we can pull them out.’ He cut just a little slit on this top one; it was the one that bothered me most, it came out right there.  He cut the slit right there and screwed it out with a screw driver. Talk about hurt; what it actually felt like when you would see an x-ray from the top of my leg, you would see these screws that much longer than my bone. 

They were sticking out there and they were coated with muscle.  When he screwed it out; he was pulling it out through there it was dragging all that stuff with it.  It felt like that, but by the time he got the screw out there was nothing on it, but it was sure sore.  I kept that screw and kept it around here. You wouldn’t believe how long it is, the other screws are still in there. I said: no more, I’ll keep them, he laughed.  That has probably been 15 years ago.  I didn’t have to have a knee replacement (he knocks on wood) and the plate is still in there and six screws are still in there.  I rode some 50 milers on trail rides, but I didn’t let it bug me after that, I lived with it, he said with a big smiling laugh.  I am still living with that knee and that hip; and I hope I live with it forever.