VIDEO: Child thrown from startled horse at Daly City horse stables
Child thrown from horse on trail ride in Daly City
A mother says her son suffered a fractured leg after being thrown from a horse that was spooked by a stranger at Ocean View Stables in Daly City on Sunday. KTVUs Tori Gaines reports from Daly City.
DALY CITY, Calif. - A mother says her five-year-old son suffered a fractured leg after being thrown from a horse that was spooked by a stranger at Ocean View Stables in Daly City on Sunday.
Meri Fuerte says the fun family outing turned sour when a stranger put her son in danger.
The whole thing was caught on video, and has now gone viral on TikTok.
Video shared by Fuerte shows her son riding along without issue, when a woman walks behind the horse and pulls its tail, causing Fuerte’s son to go flying.
Fuerte says the woman and man, captured in the video, laughed about what happened. The pair walked away without anyone addressing them. After the commotion, they were nowhere to be found.
Fuerte says she was disappointed in how the team at Ocean View Stables handled her son’s injury.
Fuerte tells KTVU she felt powerless, and she says she's worried because she is Latina, nothing will happen.
One Ocean View Stables employee assured her he had filed a report with the police, but Fuerte is concerned about what comes next.
The team at Ocean View Stables says they did all they could to support the mother and child through the traumatic situation.
"They denied all medical intervention, and said the child is okay. So in that situation we ask ‘Do you want to get back on?’ that’s always the cowboy way of doing it, you wanna get back on. They said yes, so the child got back on," Caroline Reed, Barn Manager at Ocean View Stables tells KTVU.
Ocean View Stables says they did not hear from the family that the boy was injured.
"From the time that it happened until the family ended up fully leaving was about an hour, and during that hour the entire hour that child was running around our property. We have the footage of that, him playing with his sister. There was no limp in these videos," Reed said.
Reed shared one of those videos with KTVU. Video shows the young boy walking with his sister.
Fuerte says her son didn't show signs of an injury for some time after he was thrown from the horse. Fuerte says her son’s medical bills are stacking up, as he’s been diagnosed with a severe hematoma and a fractured leg from the fall.
Fuerte must now miss work to keep her son off his leg, otherwise it’ll get worse. She says this is particularly challenging to handle as a single parent. She hopes the police will help her locate the woman from the video.
KTVU reached out to the Daly City Police Department for an update on this case, but the department declined to comment at this time. If you recognize the woman in the video, please reach out to DCPD.
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