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What evidently happened was that at the third jump, Buck simply stopped. Up to that point, according to the judges and observers of Reeve's progress on the course, everything was going fine. It was an easy, fairly low jump. Reeve was heading toward it at full tilt, about 500 yds. per min. But then "Buck just put on the brakes," says Reeve. "Later the fence judge told me that there was nothing whatever to indicate that the horse was worried about the jump. Someone suggested that a rabbit ran out and spooked Buck. I thought it could have been the shadows." It was what riders call a "dirty stop"; it occurred without warning. When he went over, he took the bridle off Buck's face. "I mean, the bridle, the bit, the reins, everything. I went over his ears like a football through the goalposts and ended up on the other side of the jump. Buck went back to the barn with no bridle. And I landed straight on my head because my hands were entangled in the bridle and I couldn't get an arm free to stop my fall. Had I done that, I'd be looking at a sprained wrist. I was heard to say, 'I can't breathe.' And that was it."
Somebody had the presence of mind to give Reeve mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and the paramedics arrived about a minute later. They intubated him and took a long and careful time to put him on a stretcher, attempting to prevent further injury to his spine. He was taken to the Culpeper Medical Center, a small medical facility that was nearly empty that weekend. Dana and Will, his three-year-old son who was along for the trip, were summoned, Dana not yet informed of the extent of the injury, Will not understanding what had happened except that something was terribly wrong. Doctors at Culpeper gave Reeve methylprednisolone (MP), a synthetic steroid that reduces the swelling of the spine and must be administered within eight hours of an injury. That was all they could do at Culpeper. At the hospital, Dana was told that he had no better than a 50% chance of making it. He was flown to the U.Va. hospital by Pegasus, the university's medevac helicopter service.
Methylprednisolone is a major advance in the spinal-cord research for which Reeve is now seeking support. An NIH-supported study showed that if MP was given within eight hours of a spinal-cord injury, a patient could save about 20% more neurons than if the drug was not used. For some, this 20% could mean the difference between breathing on their own and having to use a ventilator. Doctors speculate that at high doses, MP no longer acts as a steroid but instead inhibits the breakdown of fats into the dangerous free radicals that are like acid to cell tissues. For basic activities such as breathing, controlling bowel and bladder movements and moving the arms and legs, a person may need only 8% to 10% of the estimated 800,000 spinal-cord nerves. "It's a source of great hope," says New York University's Dr. Wise Young, a distinguished researcher in the field, who is now working with Reeve. "It means that you don't have to preserve, restore and regenerate so many axons in order to get functional recovery."