Cannon Suffers Broken Ribs in Waco Wreck
{PHOTO}Clinton Cannon escaped this scary wreck at the All American ProRodeo Finals Rodeo in Waco, Texas, with broken ribs when it could have gone so much worse. “I’ve watched the video and seen the sequence of (still) photos,” Cannon said, “and I know how lucky I was. You can see in the photos that me and the horse have about the same look on our faces … we’re both kind of going ‘ahhhhhh …’”
by ProRodeo.com | Oct 11, 2014
WACO, Texas – Clint Cannon hasn’t really figured out this celebrating your birthday thing.
On the occasion of the 36th anniversary of his birth on Oct. 9, Cannon had his horse buck over backwards on him at the All American ProRodeo Finals Rodeo in Extraco Coliseum, breaking at least two ribs.
“We didn’t go get X-rays,” Cannon said, “I’d had broken ribs before (2007) so I knew just as soon as it happened what it was. I was really lucky. I told my wife (Lindsey) I don’t know how I got out of this with just broken ribs. I told her it’s like ‘having your car on top of me.’”
Cannon, who won the title in the All American Finals last year with an event-record 92 point score in the finals, was riding Mid States Rodeo’s Hell’s Angel in a preliminary round on Oct. 9 when the scary wreck occurred.
Hell’s Angel came out of the chute and veered to the right and was running toward the wall before the horse, too late, realized its mistake. It reared up sharply to a vertical position, tilted backward and came straight down on top of Cannon.
“There was a point of no return,” Cannon said, “when I knew this wasn’t going to end well … ‘this is going to be a bad deal.’ Everything kind of kicked into super slow motion and then went into straight pain. One of my biggest thoughts on the way down was to get my hand out the rigging, so it wouldn’t get pinned (under the horse).
“The Justin SportsMedicine guys were right there on top of me right away, so I was in good hands. And I did such a good job breaking his fall, the horse was fine.”
Cannon, who came here fresh from a big week in which he had won his hometown rodeo in Hempstead, Texas, was planning to make Waco his last rodeo of the year. While he is disappointed not to be able to defend his title here, he figures he will be 100 percent when he comes back to compete after the first of the year in Denver.
“This is kind of the worst-case incident for bareback and bronc riders,” Cannon said, “and while broken ribs are bad, this scenario turned out just about as well as it could have.”
Courtesy of PRCA