In an emotional episode of her YouTube series Made For This, Ashley McBryde recalls the Sept. 2021 horseback riding accident in Montana during which she sustained major injuries.
During her time at the ranch, McBryde swapped from a horse named Blue to a younger horse named Jenny.
"The one thing we didn't do — we didn't shorten the stirrups," McBryde explained. "It seems like that's not a big deal. That's a huge deal."
This oversight caused a near-fatal event after the country singer routinely tried to slow the horse down.
"What I did was stand up on the left stirrup and put my hand on the saddle horn so I wouldn't get hit in the chest a bunch of times. Right? Cause that would suck," she said in the video. "I don't know if it's because of how fast she was running, it's really hard to know, but I leaned a little too far. [Bart Morris of Oxbow Cattle Co.] said from his point of view, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything to make it worse. But the fact remains that, according to physics, if you're going that fast, standing on one leg and leaning in that direction, you fall."
Wendy Morris of Oxbow Cattle Co., which had set up the ride, looked after an unconscious McBryde until medical personnel arrived.
"There was blood behind her head, and she was not breathing effectively," Wendy recalled in the video. "I immediately assisted her breathing and gave her mouth-to-mouth, and did that for a couple of minutes until she started breathing on her own, and I was assisting her, holding her airways so that she was ventilating. A little while after that, Ashley opened her eyes. And that was a huge sigh of relief. Huge relief for all of us there."
McBryde suffered a concussion and a broken pelvis, forcing the postponement of multiple concerts.
"We didn't even know the extent of my injuries until all the imaging came back a little while later," she told CBS Mornings' Gayle King in October 2022. "Life-saving measures were taken."
Though doctors ordered her to rest for up to 30 days, McBryde resumed her touring plans after just one week.
"I don't know what that is. It's wired in us. But, 'You have to go do that thing that you do,' was heavy on my brain and my heart.... This is what I do. If I can't do it, I'm not really sure what I am," she explained. "I think a lot of us feel that way. But yep, I was like, 'I'm doing a show.'"
McBryde has since revisited the Montana ranch to reconnect with both Wendy and Jenny.
"I got to go visit [Jenny] last week. I thought it was to tell her that I was okay. She doesn't care if I'm okay, but it was to make sure that I knew I was okay," she told King.
