Actor Joseph Fiennes was on holiday when his vacation became a trauma-inducing experience. He watched a woman die after a horse crushed her while riding in Costa Rica.
Speaking on the Travel Secrets podcast, the actor explained that he had gone horseback riding with others. That's when a horse collapsed and killed a newlywed.
"I love horse riding, and I got on to a horse early in the morning to go with a fellow traveler who was staying at the hacienda," Fiennes said. "She had just gotten married, and I remember getting up on the horse. It was getting quite hot, going into the shade, looking back, seeing this lovely woman kiss her husband goodbye, and then the horse reared up, and she sadly pulled on the reins and the weight of the horse came over and the whole horse landed on her and she fell back and really broke her head on the gravel and died."
Actor Traumatized By Experience
"In an instant, you're reminded that anything can happen. I held her for a while, her poor husband was in such shock that he couldn't comprehend or communicate. And she slipped away. And I couldn't sleep for, God, I think a month," Fiennes added during the podcast.
"I did get back on a horse before I left, and I galloped, I went hell for leather to get it out of my system," the actor added. "But when I got back my dad did say, 'You can never be entirely sure how horses are trained.' Maybe it saw a snake, I don't know. Maybe it got scared of something. But it could be the way certain horses are trained, it can get beaten into submission a bit, they can be very temperamental so you have to be super careful."
