Amberley Snyder - A Miracle Story

I was recently flipping through a Rodeo News Magazine about ready to throw it away when some of the photos in the feature story caught my eye. I flipped to the beginning and started reading a story I found amazing.

Amberley Snyder, now 21 and daughter of former Los Angeles Dodger, Cory Snyder, started riding when she was three in California. She begged her mom to let her ride until she finally found a place to take Amberley. When the family moved to Utah, Amberley said she'd only move if she could have a palomino horse. Needless to say she got that horse and from there, her rodeo journey began. She won the National Little Britches Finals All Around Title in 2009 and qualified for the National High School Finals in pole bending that same year. Since she was accepted to Oklahoma Panhandle State with a full ride academic scholarship, she decided to make a call to the rodeo coach to rodeo. She had so much going for her!

On January 10, 2010, things changed. Amberley was on her way to Denver, CO for the National Western Stock Show when she rolled her pickup. She hadn't put her seat belt on yet after just making a stop in Rawlins, WY, and was ejected, hitting a fencepost and breaking her back. She was flown to Casper, WY where she was told she broke her T12 vertebrae in her spine and would never move anything from the waist down again. However. it is possible for her to regain movement in some muscles because her spinal cord was never severed. For now, though, Amberley is confined to a wheelchair.

Aside from walking, riding horses was an aspect of Amberley's life she wasn't willing to give up. When the doctors told her she'd have to find something else to do, she replied by saying "Riding horses is not what I do, it's who I am." It was a long process getting in the saddle again, the first time being just 4 months after her accident. At one point she even told her mom just to sell the horses and went off to college. She gave it another chance, though, and decided that although riding won't be the same, it was okay. She says she's "riding on hope" and is planning to start making Pro rodeos next year.

Amberley has gone to Florida to do some therapy with the hope of regaining some muscle use in the future and is now driving with hand controls. She even has recently convinced her mom to put them in her F250 so she can pull a trailer. I think anyone, whether you are interested in or participate in rodeo or not, can be inspired by Amberley. She says the biggest thing she has learned from her accident is to "take advantage of every run- you never know if it might be our last. Feel blessed that you are there. You get to go- if anything in life goes wrong, don't let it keep you down. It's frustrating for me to see people whose lives are wasted because they are down about something. I have learned to never let someone else tell me what I am capable of... what I want to accomplish is up to me in life."  I just love this story! I can definitely take something from it and apply what she learned about her accident to my own life.