Bull rider Corye Daily, traumatically injured.

On Sunday, January 8th 2023 in Durant Oklahoma, our sweet and loving son, brother, friend and my boyfriend, Corye Daily had an accident that turned a bull riding event, into a living nightmare. When we showed up he was in good spirits, as he always is when he’s doing what he loves. We had no idea the disaster that was about to happen. He drew a bull by the name of “Big Willy” a big red bull that was thought to not buck very hard. But when he came out of the chute with Corye on him, he blew up as high as the bucking chutes and strong. The bull had other plans for Corye and even as hard as he fought to stay with him, he knew he wasn’t gonna be able to make the ride. He tried to swing his legs up over the bulls back and get thrown away from him while getting off, and his right spur on his boot caught the flank rope that was still attached to the bull. He barely had time to hit the ground and start to crawl away before the bull began to drag him through the dirt. 1,800 lbs of pure power ripped him across the hard ground, and in the process he snapped the femur bone in his left leg, clean in half. It all happened so fast, but from where I was watching, it was the longest 5-6 seconds of my life. And when his foot finally popped free, he tried to get up and run and collapsed into the dirt screaming. The bull circled back again still in the arena, but we were lucky that the bullfighters were excellent at their job and distracted the bull, keeping him away from Corye. He tried once more to get up before finally giving up and my heart sunk. Everything was a complete blur from hopping the arena fence, to running across the arena to his side. Even laying covered in dirt, he tried to joke around and keep his good spirits but the amount of pain he was in was excruciating. And he was not normal Corye. He kept telling everyone “my femur is broke, my femur is broke” and when he looked at me, he grabbed my hand tight and he said “just don’t leave me okay? Don’t leave me”. My heart absolutely broke in two. Everyone at the rodeo was so helpful and kept him calm while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. People said prayers, and others carefully removed his rodeo gear.

As his girlfriend I’ve stood next to that arena fence and supported every single 8 second ride that he’s made since I met him. And if you know Corye personally as family, or friends, then you know that he’s a dang good rider, and the kid has more perseverance and try in him than everybody I’ve ever met. He’s strong and has a lot of fight in him. He has such a good heart and he’s so sweet. And even if he’s injured, not a lot gets to him. I’ve seen him break his neck and a week later, get on another bull. He loves what he does and as expected being a rodeo athlete, injuries happen. It takes about 7 pounds of pressure to break your arm, but the femur takes several HUNDRED pounds of pressure. But a femur fracture can be extremely dangerous, as the bone itself is right next to your femoral artery. If the bone breaks and the artery is cut, you can bleed out in a matter of minutes. And while that is worst case scenario, we didn’t know what happened. So we prayed and prayed. They took him to the hospital where even lying in bed, the pain got to the point to where he couldn’t lay still but would cry and scream every time he moved. They did X-rays and CT scans and once they knew the artery was okay, then transferred him to a level 4 trauma hospital in Plano, Texas for surgery. The accident happened at 9 pm exactly Sunday night, and he finally went into surgery around 10 am the next morning. So he laid in a hospital bed in unbearable pain for 13 hours. And even though they were giving him narcotics to help, they barely even scraped the amount of pain he was in. At one point he began to beat the side of the hospital bed crying. He couldn’t take it anymore. His mom, dad, brother and I sat with him or out in the waiting room just begging God to heal him and help his pain. And we all kept each other sane.

God is so good and answered our prayers because when he finally did go into surgery, the procedure was a success and he came out okay. He now has a metal rod and screws in his leg, holding the bone together. And now he’s resting, trying to recover from everything that has happened in the whirlwind of the last 48 hours.

Corye is a PRCA pro rider, and that is or was his full time job. But this incident has taken his 2023 rodeo season away from him. He has at least 3 months before he can be on his feet a lot independently, and about 8 months before he can even THINK about rodeo again. His heart is broken. As is mine. He loves this more than anything in the world. And late last year, we were blessed enough to get into our first house together, just outside of Stephenville TX. We’ve got a cute little home on 10 acres, where he keeps his family’s horses and cow. He will be on bed rest for awhile and while I will be working full time, it will be extremely hard to keep up with our bills, rent, feed for animals, electricity, food, etc on one salary alone. Not to mention any specialist he will need for physical therapy, the hospital bill, and another 8 months of doctor bills coming. Any sort of help is appreciated, even if it’s just taking the five minutes out of your day to read this and share it on! It is going to be a long road to recovery and he is so so lucky to have such an amazing family. They have been so strong and have kept me strong during this time. They also plan to help us take care of him. But our biggest concern right now is keeping our house and taking care of our bills. God bless everyone and thank you for your time.

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