Mount Sinai equestrian paralyzed in fall walks to podium one year later

Jennifer Post Rudolph remembers every second of it.

The horse tripping. The fall coming too fast to get her hands up. The railroad tie. And then, the worst of it.

“I felt my neck snap,” the Mount Sinai horse trainer told a crowd at Hackensack University Medical Center. “And then I felt my arms and my hands and my limbs just melt into the ground.”

She paused. “At that point, I knew I was paralyzed.”

Rudolph was speaking to a room filled with the doctors, nurses, and trauma team members who had kept her alive. She had walked to the podium to address them — with the aid of a walker and to a standing ovation — exactly one year after that fall changed everything.

VIDEO: Jennifer Post Rudolph walks to the podium

A Mount Sinai resident for more than three decades, Rudolph had ridden horses since she was 5. When she and her husband Bobby purchased their home, they specifically chose a property that could accommodate a paddock.

Horses weren’t a hobby, they were what much of her life revolved around. She spent years teaching others to ride, building a reputation as a skilled and dedicated trainer on the North Shore.

On April 17, 2025, Rudolph was cantering at a horse show in New Jersey on a horse she knew well when the animal tripped. She didn’t see it coming, and the fall was instantaneous.

“It happened so fast,” she said at the medical center event late last month. “When I fell, I didn’t get to put my hands in front of my face or my head.”

Rudolph’s head landed on a railroad tie and she felt her neck snap. She said started screaming that she couldn’t move.

When the ambulance brought her to Hackensack University Medical Center — a Level 1 Trauma Center — she fought to stay present, keeping her sons Jake and Alex in her mind.

“Don’t shut your eyes,” she kept telling herself. “Don’t shut your eyes.”

Rudolph remembers people running to help her. She remembers being told she needed an MRI and that it would take 25 minutes — a span that felt unimaginable. When she came out, neurosurgeon Dr. Hooman Azmi told her she needed surgery immediately.

Her family wasn’t with her. She said yes anyway.

“He saved my life,” she told the crowd. “I know that.”

The surgery — a decompression from C3 to C6 with rods inserted along her spine — was a success. After 10 days in the ICU, Rudolph was transferred to the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange.

She arrived to rehab on a stretcher, and able to move her head.

Therapists placed her in a harness, with five people helping support her, and began the work of teaching her to walk again. Her care team believed the sooner she got upright, the better her long-term chances.

Occupational therapy ran parallel, focused on coaxing movement back into her hands and arms.

Rudolph was discharged June 20 due to insurance restrictions and came home to Mount Sinai, where friends had installed wheelchair ramps. She began outpatient rehab, traveling from home with her husband Bobby to STARS in East Meadow.

A GoFundMe campaign launched by her niece Eliza DeCarlo has raised $52,000 to cover medical costs, specialized equipment, home modifications and around-the-clock care.

It’s been nearly a year since Rudolph returned home, and her progress has been steady. She left the stretcher for a wheelchair, then graduated to walker.

Rudolph stood at a microphone when she spoke at the medical center event, but needed to pause near the end when she said she began to feel lightheaded, a reminder the road is still ongoing.

Her husband Bobby and her sister Christina have been by her side virtually around the clock in the 14 months since the riding accident.

Christina, Rudolph noted with a flash of dry humor, was in Portugal on a hiking trip.

“That means she needs to get away from me,” Rudolph said.

The laughter in the room said everything about how far she has come.

For Charles Adams Jr., the new chief of trauma at HUMC, witnessing Rudolph’s progress emphasizes why the work matters.

“These are tough cases for everyone involved,” he said. “When our patients come back, walking and sharing their stories of recovery, it’s an incredible and deeply moving experience for the entire trauma team.

“It’s a powerful reminder of why we do what we do,” he added.

Greater Long Island first covered Jennifer Post Rudolph’s story in May 2025. Those wishing to support her continued recovery can find the GoFundMe campaign below.

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