An avid hunter/jumper as a child, Acacia Walker of San Ramon, California had competed and achieved most of her horse show goals by the age of 16. She wanted to learn something more and that is when she began hanging around friends in the NorCal Open and Quarter Horse Circuit helping out at shows and enjoying a new scene. She met David and Cheryl Busick of Pleasanton, California and after school began riding and falling in love with quarter horses. Then, she was off to college. This incredible story is how she found her way back to showing horses after a life-changing accident.
A horrific popping sound, like that of a machine’s belt being snapped. Deafening loud. That is the hellish noise that Acacia Walker most associates with her life changing accident.
A young, new mother on May 20, 2009, Walker had paused while making a legal, left-hand turn on a busy two lane highway in rural California. With her nine-month-old son, Wyatt, safely in his rear facing car seat, Walker was violently hit from behind by an 18 wheel semi-truck.
Her trusted 7,000 pound Suburban was launched over 250 feet in the air, pushed across the center line and landed in a field. The impact was so extreme that officials likened it to a bullet being shot out of a gun. Acacia doesn’t remember much except mistaking the blood covered windshield for spilled sweet potato soup. Her only thought…panic. Is my son alive? No, there is no way he could have survived.
In and out of consciousness, Acacia began acknowledging her greatest fear – my son is gone forever. So she started praying – Please God, don’t take my son. “My faith is what saved me,” claims Walker. “As soon as I started praying, I immediately felt a sense of comfort and warmth, like a thousand angels hugging me.”
The impact was so intense that her son’s car seat was shoved up and under where the driver’s seat should have been and was completely out of sight. The only way the police officer knew there was a child in the car was from Acacia’s unconscious moaning about her baby. Miraculously, the little child was protected in a pocket of air created by the crushing of the rear-facing car seat. He was cut to safety, unknown to his mother. (Pictured here in 2012, a little over three years after the accident.)
After the accident, the long Suburban had transformed into a two-door car, as everything was crumpled like a tin can. The rear axle was gone, and only the front doors were visible and the driver’s seat was injected into the engine. Acacia was pinned by the steering wheel in her groin. The seat belt embedded into her body. It was hard to discern what was skin and what was nylon – a millimeter more and a major artery would have been severed and she would have surely died. Acacia had been crushed from the belly button down.
When Acacia woke up in the hospital, she immediately asked about her son. With profound relief, she found out he had miraculously survived the accident. However, soon after, she also realized that she could not wiggle her toes. “I kept staring at them, willing them to wiggle, but they wouldn’t. It is like this weird fantasy. I was still in shock. This isn’t happening to me.”
She had no movement in her legs, no feeling, and, as the days progressed, it wasn’t improving. The hospital staff recommended surgery but couldn’t promise the outcome. That’s when the doctors’ told her, ‘You will never walk again’. Acacia was paralyzed. She refused to believe. She demanded a physical therapist at that moment. She threw a fit. A major tantrum. “No, I have a baby to take care of.”
That stubbornness, that tenacity, that lack of belief in her limitations and absolute belief in her faith is what kept her going. A self-selected mantra, “Walking in Faith”, Acacia would often utter this to herself during the darkest times. Her recovery was intense.
A month after her accident, her physical therapy started with a hoist to lift her to the side of the bed, any little movement left her drenched in sweat and physically exhausted. It was a slow process because she had open wounds that needed to heal and was at a very high risk for major infections. Bandages needed to be changed three to four times a week and each changing was a three to four-hour process.
Despite these challenges, she was determined to walk again, even if that meant taking a few steps across the hospital room to use the personal facilities.
“When the nurse brought in the bedpan and told me I would have to get used to using it, I right out refused. That was a turning point. This was not going to be my life.”
Fifteen surgeries later, physical therapy became a staple still Acacia could not grasp the reality of it all. “It wasn’t until they took me to the pool to begin trying to walk in the water. They lowered me down with the hoist and unlike a healthy person, my legs began to float. I had no control. Reality hit – this was serious.”
After being released from the hospital, Acacia received help from family, friends, a full-time nurse, a day nurse who would bathe and dress her, home care doctors and an occupational therapist. In spite of these physical challenges, Acacia also cared for her son to the best of her ability. On top of that, her marriage fell apart. “It was an intense three years,” Walker recalls.
During this time, it was her love of horses, that Acacia missed the most during her recovery. She needed to take back control. She researched and found the National Center for Equine Therapy (NCET), and immediately, her doctors said NO. In no uncertain terms was she to get on a horse.
Once again, Acacia refused to listen. This center is renowned for working with the military, and many of their patients are soldiers whose legs have been destroyed by bombs. Acacia’s injuries were so severe that they were comparable to those of war veterans. Additionally, there were doctors on staff.
In October of 2012, (a little over three years after the accident) with the help of her AQHA family, Cheryl Busick, Patsy Gilbert, Tina Darmhoray just to name a few, they began driving her to her lessons and appointments with encouragement all the way. It was a huge turning point in her recovery.
“Cheryl Busick was a Godsend, and at each lesson, she would listen and learn what type of treatment and therapy I needed. That’s when she suggested we give it a try at her ranch with their show quarter horses. They were more broke, better trained and somewhat quieter than a few of the therapy horses. Just the traveling to the center alone would leave me physically exhausted.”
So they did it. A year after taking lessons at NCET, Acacia began taking weekly lessons under the guidance of David and Cheryl Busick. About six months in, they began talking about getting Acacia a project of her own. Always an admirer of Busick client, Candy Bava and her home-bred horses, Acacia was blessed to be able to lease, U Gotta Give Me Credit (Hershey), a quiet, handsome dark bay gelding that has a heart as big as hers. Her first ride on her new partner, Acacia was all smiles and it didn’t take long before David and Cheryl began whispering about getting her in the show ring – little did Acacia know.
“It truly took a lot of people to make this happen for me,” Acacia shares. “What people don’t see – I look ‘normal’, I’m young, smiling, but there is a lot I can’t do on my own.”
Like putting on a pair of chaps, or freely swinging a limp leg over her mount, Acacia needs help. With intense physical therapy for the past seven years, Acacia can walk with a walker or cane. Sometimes she can walk on her own, but sometimes she needs a wheelchair depending on the situation. While Acacia has limited mobility of her legs, she has no paralysis.
Acacia is forever grateful to her team. “I have hard days, really hard days, but I don’t show it. I hide my injuries. I just don’t want to let myself down. Some days, I just can’t.”
In May of 2016, Acacia debuted in her first-ever AQHA class in the walk-jog pleasure at the CAQHEA Show in Elk Grove, California. A month later, her trainers sprung another challenge on Acacia at the Summer Celebration in Rancho Murieta, California. The Busicks told her that she was going to show in the walk-jog trail.
Reminiscent of her hunter/jumper days, Acacia has always loved trail courses, however, with her limited feeling and mobility of her legs, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able. However, her unwavering belief in God and unstoppable positive energy led her to achieve a goal that she never really even considered since her accident, showing in trail.
“Would I be able to turn? To maneuver around the obstacles? Would it be smooth enough over the poles? Would I be able to steer?”
These questions were constantly running through her mind. Acacia was nervous. Yet, despite her fears and with the guidance of her trusted partner, Hershey, she not only graced through the obstacles, she won the AQHA Walk/Jog Trail class under all three judges.
“It took ten minutes for it all to sink in. Everything was delayed. Oh my goodness, did that just happen?” was her exuberant reaction. She called Candy Bava (Hershey’s breeder and owner) and cried, she called her family and cried and she cried with her trainers, but there were nothing but happy tears. This was a miracle. She, with the help of a team and Hershey, was truly ‘Walking in Faith’.
Today, Acacia isn’t planning her next goal or win or ride; she is just enjoying every moment, whether it is a nuzzle from her furry, bay friend; the laughter of her now seven-year-old son, Wyatt; a smile from her new 14-month-old daughter, Cavella, or encouragement from her ever-supportive husband, Chris Walker.
One thing is for certain; she will be a force to be reckoned with in and out of the show pen. “Each person is there for a reason. I couldn’t have done it without God, my family, my son, my husband and my AQHA friends, especially David and Cheryl Busick.”
