A real life ‘Revenant’ crawled across rugged countryside for more than two hours to safety after she was kicked by a horse – and left with a shattered pelvis.
Tough Janine Eaglestone dragged herself for an estimated three miles to find help, after an accident led her to being kicked in the hip by her horse Macbeth.
The 45-year-old, from Copthorne, Surrey, was in a field near her remote stables when she went to greet her new horse, a liver chestnut gelding she had bought the week before, when he lashed out and hoofed her in the side.
Janine, who did not have her mobile phone with her, managed to drag herself miles back to the stables, despite the searing pain.
Badly-injured Janine agonisingly crawled for hours before she was finally got back to her stables – where she was able to ring for help from a land line.
She said: “I had only had him a week.
“My stables are very remote in the middle of a field with no road.
“I went up to him, tapped him on the bum and said ‘good boy’ and literally out of nowhere he kicked me and smashed my pelvis.”
She was saved from further injury when another of her horses – a pony called Denzil – stood between her and Macbeth, protecting her.
Janine said: “The pain was excruciating. It took me about two hours to get across the field to the tack room and call an ambulance.
“They wanted to airlift me but there was nowhere to land and they ended up putting me into a 4×4 to get me to hospital.”
Janine’s remarkable story of survival echoes the BAFTA Award-winning film The Revenant, in which Leonardo Di Caprio’s rugged frontiersman character crawled to safety after getting attacked by a bear.
When help finally arrived, she was whisked to hospital for emergency care, where doctors warned it would be six months before she could work again.
But the animal lover, who runs a dog day-care business, proved them wrong – and was back walking her pooches within three weeks.
Unlucky Janine, who is currently recovering from a heart operation, was kicked by Macbeth late last summer.
She said: “I walk dogs for a living, and I have a habit of taking on rescue horses to help give them a nice couple of years at the end of their lives.”
Upon arrival at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south west London, doctors inserted a metal plate with pins and screws into her shattered pelvis.
She said: “I had no idea how badly injured I was.”
Doctors said her recovery would take months, but she was back running her business – Woodland Dogs – within weeks and was back riding within two months.
She said everyone had been surprised at the speed of her recovery.
Her partner Daniel Clarke, had even been prepared to give up his job and run her business while her injuries healed.
As well as running her dog-care business, called Woodland Dogs, Janine herself owns six dogs, a tortoise, her horses and a rescue bantam chicken.
Her ordeal will be aired in public when she was is featured on the Channel 4 TV programme 24 Hours in A&E this spring.