‘It’s what I love’: Teen bull rider returns to competition only a few months after terrifying accident
HICO, Texas (KWTX) - A 15-year-old bull rider is back in the saddle just months after a terrifying accident that left her hospitalized for several days.
Lilli Woods, who was 14 at the time of the accident, says she grew up around the rodeo and loved watching the bull riders.
“It’s always something I wanted to do,” Woods shared. But she never got the opportunity to try it, until she started riding colts for CT Bryant Cutting Horses.
“I just got the opportunity to ride broncs and I did that and I love it, I really do,” she said, “And then I got the opportunity to ride bulls a few months later and it started from there.”
Because she started later than most kids she had to just dive right in. However, things were going well… until that one ride on January 18th.
“I got in there and I just wasn’t quite ready when I nodded,” Woods recalled, “I got hung up for like half a second and then he kind of went to spin left and I just got under him.”
The bull’s back leg stomped right on her. Thankfully she was able to get out from under him, but when she tried to walk that’s when she knew something was wrong.
“It felt like I had maybe broken a rib or two and got the wind knocked out of me,” Woods explained.
She was taken to a hospital in Lampasas where they learned she had a hematoma on her spleen.
That then tore and became a grade 4 laceration, which is when she was life flighted to Baylor Scott and White and met Doctor Dan Little, the chief of surgery at McLane Children’s Hospital.
“She was banged up pretty rough,” Dr. Little recalled, “she had injury to her spleen, she also had several probably old fractures to her back, multiple fractures of her back bone and several rib fractures.”
While it’s likely the three broken ribs were from this accident, Dr. Little says with rodeo you never know, adding that the five compression fractures on her spine were from previous riding injuries.
“Essentially, the back bone and the bones are stacked on top of each other, have compressed to some degree,” he explained, “It’s probably a sign that it’s a tough sport, and these kids are awfully tough.”
But after hearing that, Woods says she wasn’t even sure if she would be allowed to keep competing. “I was honestly worried that I wouldn’t be able to, it was kind of iffy for about the first month,” she shared.
Thankfully she was only in the hospital for three days, and after just three months she was back at it. “It’s what I love so… I was honestly more happy to be back and I didn’t really think about the injury,” Woods said.
In fact she’ll be competing in Fort Worth this weekend, and Dr. Little says he’ll be there with his first aid kit to cheer her on.
Woods says her hope is to do this for as long as she’s able, and maybe even make it to the Professional Bull Riders League.
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