Yvonne Connolly has revealed it took a year and “extensive surgery” to recover from her horrific horse riding accident.
In November 2019, the former model was kicked by a horse, leaving her with a broken arm and serious injuries to her face.
Opening up about the incident on The Jennifer Zamparelli Show on RTÉ2fm today, Yvonne explained: “Over a year ago, I had a freak accident, I got kicked in the face by a horse. Double-barrel so one broke my arm, the other broke my face.”
“And after extensive surgery, a couple of surgeries, I was left with three plates in my face and a lot of deformity and scars.”
“It did take a good year to recover from it. I had a lot of surgery… I was in intensive care, and I nearly lost my eye.”
The mother-of-three continued: “So that was a very difficult time for me, but look these things happen and the human mind is resilient.”
“I got through it with a lot of really good people around me, and a lot of humour, humour was key to the whole healing process too. So yeah, I learned a lot from it.”
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Speaking about the moment she first saw her face after the accident, Yvonne confessed: “It was a shock, because I did’t realise how bad it was. You know you go into shock and then I was on morphine…”
“They took all the bandaging off and were waiting for the doctors to come in, and I had a minute so I picked up my phone and did the reverse camera, which is not flattering at the best of times, had a quick look and it was a massive shock, yeah, a massive shock.”
When asked how she recovered from the accident mentally, the 47-year-old said: “I think I probably took it quite well. You know, I was back riding again quite quickly, and then Covid came along.”
“I was probably the only person in the country happy to wear a mask. So yeah, it was just time.”
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Yvonne also admitted she forgives the horse who kicked her, as it was simply a freak accident.
“Look when you’re around horses you kind of have to expect you’re always going to have a fall or an injury of whatever, that can happen,” she explained.
“But as I said, that was a freak thing, it just does not happen at all, but it did happen to me.”
“And look I had great people around me and as I said lots of humour, John my partner was super, the kids, everyone helped me. And we just ended up joking about it a lot.”
