THIS is the freak moment a jockey came a millimetre from being paralysed after he slammed his head into a barrier when his horse reared in the stalls.
Dwayne Dunn, 47, said he was lucky to be alive following the shock incident on September 5.
The Group 1-winning jockey revealed how staying on the horse and somehow finishing the race led doctors to believe it saved his life.
Dunn fractured his C6 vertebrae – known as the ‘hangman’s fracture’ because that’s the one that gets snapped when people are hanged – aboard Shot Of Irish.
It is not uncommon for horses to rear in the stalls, but it is rare for a jockey to bash their head on the top of the structure in such a damaging way.
Dunn, who amazingly managed to finish the race, was rushed to Royal Melbourne hospital in Australia for scans.
He previously revealed to racenet: “The first surgeon that came to see me says, ‘you’ve got two unstable factures in your C6, you’re lucky you’re not a quadriplegic.
“I was lucky it (the barrier) hit more the back of my head than the front. It was able to compress down rather than snap back.
“It’s like the hangman’s fracture. When you get hung, that’s the one that snaps.
“The doctor said I was lucky I stayed on because if I had moved the fracture, that would have been it.
“I definitely dodged a bullet by staying on him.
“It went black for a second or two but I was lucky, when I landed back on the horse in the right position.”
Incredibly, Dunn was hoping to ride again before Christmas.
But he said he has not yet been given the all-clear to resume racing and will only know when he can return after speaking to a specialist.
Speaking of when he can ride again, Dunn said: “I find out later next week when I see the specialist.
“It’s getting better but I’ve just got to go back and see him before I take the next step of getting my fitness up and getting back on a horse.
“It might be mid-January before I get back at this point.”
Dunn has spent his time off researching his injury and said travelling in the car now is the ‘worst thing’ for the pain.
He added: “I’d hoped I’d be back quicker but not after I researched it. All of the information says it’s a minimum of 12 weeks as a normal.
“I can get around all right but it’s just sitting in the car for an hour to get to Flemington and things like that are the worst thing.
“I’d been getting a few headaches and such and they said I shouldn’t have been getting them so they just wanted to tick that box and go back over everything.”
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