‘I Literally Flew Off Jenny’: Florida Professor Survives Brutal Horse Fall Near Cody

The original story by Scott Schwebke for Cowboy State Daily.

A Florida professor’s dream Wyoming trail ride turned into a nightmare this fall when he was thrown from his horse near Cody, slid down a steep ridge and smashed into a fallen tree, crushing several vertebrae.

Today, after emergency surgery and months of recovery, he’s training for a half-marathon — but says he’s done with horses for good.

In September, Bhuvan Unhelkar, a 65-year-old business professor from the University of South Florida, signed up for a two-hour ride at Bill Cody Ranch, just outside Yellowstone.

An “Indian trying to be a cowboy,” as he jokingly puts it, Unhelkar was clearly the greenhorn in the group. He saddled a “gentle” white mare named Jenny, rode in the back of the line and, about 30 minutes in, started feeling it.

“My thighs were all sore. Straddling a horse is not easy for me,” he said. “But I thought, okay, I’ll somehow manage it.”

The guide told the group to lean forward going up a ridge and lean back coming down — standard trail-riding advice. But when the horses started down, Unhelkar couldn’t move.

“I was frozen like a piece of wood,” he said. “When Jenny took three or four steps forward from up the ridge, I didn’t know what was happening. I literally flew off Jenny, and I closed my eyes.”

Bill Cody Ranch did not respond to requests for comment.

Unhelkar estimates he slid about 20 feet down the slope before his head slammed into a fallen tree — stopping him just short of what he says was a 100-foot drop.

“The left side of my head was opened up,” he recalled. “There was a big gash, a lot of blood, and I couldn’t breathe. I tried to get up, not knowing what was happening.”

His friend Josh Baker, a 46-year-old financial consultant from Sarasota — and one of his former students — jumped off his horse and rushed over. He used his shirt to press on the wound and started a basic concussion check.

“I asked Bhuvan his name, the date,” Baker said. “He was in great spirits but in a lot of pain.”

With the help of Baker’s girlfriend and the guide, they moved Unhelkar to higher ground, worried that a groaning, bloody rider lying still on the trail might attract a grizzly.

“I felt we were very vulnerable there,” Baker said.

A 911 call went out. Most of the group rode back to the ranch while Unhelkar tried to stay awake.

“I was also telling Josh to keep cutting sarcastic jokes so I’d remain conscious,” Unhelkar said.

About 45 minutes later, emergency responders arrived on horseback. They started an IV and strapped him onto an inflatable, single-wheeled stretcher. It took about an hour to roll him off the mountain to the waiting ambulance bound for West Park Hospital in Cody.

At the hospital, doctors stapled his scalp wound closed with nine staples and then delivered the real blow: two crushed cervical vertebrae and five crushed thoracic vertebrae.

Once he was stable, physicians told him to get back to Florida immediately for surgery. The next day, he and Baker drove to Billings, Montana, caught a flight to Tampa, and headed straight for Lakewood Ranch Medical Center near Sarasota.

There, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Eric Sundberg performed a five-hour emergency surgery, installing titanium rods to replace the destroyed thoracic vertebrae.

Unhelkar spent about two weeks in the hospital, followed by physical therapy. He credits his medical team and an outpouring of support from family and friends.

“I am extremely grateful to the universe that I have such a rich set of family and friends,” he said.

Now back on his feet, Unhelkar is planning something ambitious: a half-marathon in Sydney, Australia, where he’ll be teaching from his second home.

Running? Yes. Riding again? Absolutely not.

“I think I have done enough in this lifetime,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t need to prove anything more to any horse.”