Emma Booth was lying in a hospital bed when she decided she was going to try and make it to the Paralympics.
The budding horse rider had been involved in a near-fatal car accident, after a truck jack-knifed her car while driving home from an equestrian event in Albury, NSW.
Emma was in the car with her friend Courtney Fraser at the time, who also survived. Sadly, the horses travelling in the trailer attached did not.
"I remember being in the car before the ambulance arrived and the whole car was just thrashing from side to side. And I could't figure out for a second why," she told Horseland.
"It took me a moment to realise it was because one of the horses was in the back scrambling. It just made me feel sick to my stomach because there was nothing I could do."
Emma spent four months in hospital and was left with a fractured skull, severe abdominal injuries, a punctured lung, a fractured sternum, a broken ankle and serious internal bleeding.
But she was determined to get back on the saddle.
"There were plenty of tears in that initial period, but I just wanted to ride again," she told the International Paralympic Committee.
"I started Googling things like Paralympics, Para sport, Para equestrian, Para dressage. It was at that point that I saw the next Paralympics was in 2016."
While in hospital, she told her parents, "By the way I’m no longer an Eventor (equestrian event) I’m going to be a Para dressage rider and I’m going to the Rio Paralympics."
The 30-year-old hasn't looked back since, and has come a long way to compete at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
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