Woman who suffered ‘horrific’ horse riding accident dies after year-long recovery fight

Lauren Simpson was paralysed from the breast down after suffering a "horrific" horse riding accident. Photo / Givealittle

An Auckland woman paralysed in a horse riding accident has died, a year after launching a fundraiser to help her get back in the saddle.

Lauren Simpson suffered a “horrific horse riding accident” on March 29 last year, according to a Givealittle page set up to raise money for her specialist riding equipment.

Simpson said the fall caused her to land “on the back of my head” before her horse, Dash, dropped to one knee and rolled on to her.

“I knew instantly that I could not move my legs.”

She suffered a broken C2 vertebra, a T3-T4 dislocation, bent spine and four fractured ribs, leaving her “paralysed from the breast down”.

In a post on Facebook today, her family announced that she died from a heart attack.

“It is with much sadness that I have to advise you all that Lauren died last night from a heart attack,” the post read.

“St John responders worked so [hard] to try and save her but it was not to be.”

Since the accident, Simpson had been determined to ride again. The Givealittle page, launched to help fund the modified disability saddle and riding hoist she needed, had raised more than $6400.

“Now I am a paraplegic with a passion to continue riding for physical and mental health reasons,” she wrote on the page.

“... what keeps me motivated and working to heal, is the idea of one day being able to get back on my horse.”