110 EqUUS 498 AUTUMN 2019
going to try to create a fire line to con-
tain the blaze and put it out before it
went on up the mountain. Andrea went
with him to help.
The wind came up and the fire ex-
ploded and grew larger. It raged up the
hill toward them. The hill was too steep
for them to outrun the fire with the
crawler tractor, so Mark put it in neu-
tral and let it roll back down the hill,
through the flames, to an area that had
already burned, where it would be safer
to jump off and run. Andrea panicked
as the crawler tractor careened back-
ward down the hill. She jumped
off---right into the 30-foot-high flames
---and ran
through those
flames to get
away from
the fire. Mark
spun the crawler
around sideways
to stop it after it
got through the flames, then jumped off
to find her. They ran down to the house,
where the fire department found them
and took them by ambulance 12 miles
to our hospital. There, the doctors and
nurses frantically tried to get Andrea
stabilized so she could be sent by Life
Flight to the Intermountain Burn Center
in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Andrea’s burn injuries were worst
on her hands, arms and legs, and some
on her legs were deep, down into thecattle in. It was an exhilarating ride. We
had no idea that the very next day our
lives would change forever.
Trial by fire
On the evening of July 5, Andrea was
visiting friends on the other side of the
mountain, and the group set off celebra-
tory fireworks. Just as the last rocket
was lit, the family dog tried to grab it,
deflecting sparks toward the hill be-
hind the house rather than straight up
into the sky. The tall, dry sagebrush
caught fire. Andrea immediately called
the fire department and her friend
Mark started his crawler tractor and
headed up the hill in the dark. He was
muscles and tendons. She spent the
rest of that summer in the intensive
care unit fighting for her life, undergo-
ing skin graft surgeries, and then as
an outpatient having her wounds re-
dressed and bandaged daily. She finally
came home in September.
Andrea could barely walk, but she
worked hard at her physical therapy.
The day she got home she had two
goals: She wanted to be able to lift her
2-year-old daughter again, and she
wanted to be able to walk out into the
barnyard far enough to see her horses.
Andrea climbed into the saddle a few
times in the summer of 2001, but shedidn’t start riding seriously again for an-
other five years, after her arms and legs
regained their strength. That meant that
Breezy had an extended vacation. But
she picked up just where she left off,
and by the following summer she and
Andrea were chasing cows and check-
ing gates and fences on the range.
When Breezy was 20, Andrea began
working with a younger horse, and her
children started riding the now very
seasoned, dependable but still-livelyBreezy was fun to ride because
she liked to “go” and had a tremendous
trot. Plus, she was always
sure-footed dashing down hills
after wayward cows.PREPARATION: In
the weeks leading
up to her surgery,
Breezy (shown here
with Andrea) wore
a specially fortified
fly mask to help her
adapt to having no
sight on her left
side. LEFT: Breezy
at age 5.