‘I have more hardware than Norris,’ joked Lester Wood about the four titanium plates he sports after surviving a near-fatal horseback riding accident on September 14. The Pacific Palisades resident recently spoke to his fellow Optimist Club members about the accident that resulted in two major surgeries and nearly $500,000 in medical bills. ’Horseback riding is a passion of mine,’ said Wood, who took up riding at the age of 62 at Will Rogers State Park, and even bought his own horse, Scout. Wood, now 69, admits that he made several mistakes on the day of the accident. Instead of riding Scout, he was atop a 7-year-old thoroughbred from Hollywood Park that was accustomed to a smooth track surface, not to rocks, a trail and unexpected distractions. The next mistake was not wearing a helmet. ‘I put on my sturdy straw hat,’ quipped Wood, who said he then mounted the thoroughbred and rode off, ponying Scout for his friend Geoff Shelden, who was planning to meet them up at Will Rogers. As Wood rode along the steep trail off Evans Road that connects to the old Will Rogers Road, with Scout trailing behind, he remembered looking at his watch, seeing that it was 3:25 p.m. and thinking he should call Shelden because he was running a few minutes late. ‘Next think I knew, I was in the hospital.’ From what Wood was able to piece together afterwards, it seems that sprinklers on a local property went off, spooking the thoroughbred. Wood and the horse slid off the trail and off a five-foot retaining wall. A hiker saw Wood lying on the road and heard his cell phone ringing. Shelden was trying to call Wood to find out what had happened. The passerby answered Wood’s phone. After calling 911 for help, Shelden immediately came to the area and tied the two horses to a pole. ’The horse was fine; it seems he landed on a cushion’me,’ said Wood, who was transported to Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center by Station 69. Wood was not so fine: his condition was listed as unstable and critical. He was diagnosed with a concussion, fractured scapula, torn aorta, multiple pulmonary emboli, broken ribs, nicked liver, a tear in his bladder, fractured lumbar discs, shattered pelvis, internal bleeding and a torn meniscus in one knee. When the torn aorta was discovered, Wood was transferred to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center that evening. The aorta needed to be repaired immediately with stents, and Wood’s doctor suggested a relatively new procedure, going through a vein in Wood’s leg. ‘I asked the doctor how many he had done. He told me four, so I told him, ‘I’m your fifth.” Wood said in his Optimist talk that he wished he had asked the follow-up question, ‘How many have been successful?’ The surgery on September 15 was successful and, a week later, the four titanium plates were implanted in Wood’s pelvis to repair the shattered bones. After 15 days in ICU, he was transferred to UCLA’s Neurological Rehabilitation Unit, where he stayed until November 3. ’The first day at the center, they got me up and I tried to take a step,’ Wood said. ‘After that attempt I was sweating, shaking and needed to go back to bed, but by the time I left, I was on a set of crutches.’ Wood praised the Center, which requires patients to do four hours of therapy a day. Afterwards, at home, he continued physical therapy and began swimming an hour a day at the aquatic center at Palisades High School. ‘What a great place,’ Wood said. ‘When I get in the water, the pressure is off.’ While at the pool, he met Palisadian Al Morelli, who has started a foundation to teach rehabilitation techniques to trainers. ‘He said I needed to set goals,’ said Wood, who is currently training for a two-mile ocean swim on August 21. In addition to swimming, he exercises one hour a day and has physical therapy three times a week at the Cypress Center on Monument. ‘I haven’t been walking much, because it is painful and my legs are still weak,’ Wood said, noting that the nerves to his legs were affected when the horse landed on him. Hospital costs totaled $291,984, with Medicare paying $67,578 and supplemental Medicare paying the remainder. Doctor bills were $190,592, with Medicare paying $27,856, Blue Cross paying $6,771, with the rest covered through supplemental Medicare. The drug bill was $14,167, but through AARP, the cost was discounted to $6,474. AARP then paid $2,236, with Wood paying $4,238. ’When I looked at how much was spent, Medicare and I got a great bargain,’ said Wood, who had been paying $173 a month for the supplementary Medicare coverage. Wood, who has lived in the Palisades for 13 years, sold his business, the Orrick Herrington Law Firm, in 2001 and, in 2005, started advising those 62 and older about reverse mortgages. He hasn’t been able to resume that business because ‘I’m tired a lot.’ Fortunately, he is receiving $974 a week from state disability. After his accident, is Wood ready to hit the trails again? ‘I don’t have any fear of riding,’ he said. ‘I just don’t feel my hips are flexible enough to control a horse.’ He sold Scout to a local couple because he knew it would be some time before he resumed horseback riding. Wood and his wife Connie have two grown children: Mike, a tree trimmer with the City of Santa Monica, and Monica, a midwife living in Portland.
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