By Caitlin Brezinski

Trail ride brings awareness to PTSD

Sep 17, 2014 | 7:12 AM

Horses have been a big part of Amanda Holm’s life for as long as she can remember. Her respect for service members and her love of horses was recently combined to create something bigger.

Holm, a lifetime resident from Yellow Creek and former air cadet, held the first PTSD Awareness horseback trail ride on Sept. 14 between the towns of Wakaw and Yellow Creek. The purpose of the event was to not only raise awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder but to donate money to a program called Can Praxis, which uses horses to help soldiers cope.

“Being that I’m so passionate about horses and helping soldiers, I decided that I wanted to try to do something to help them,” Holm said. “[Horses] have an innate ability. If there’s a horse that’s had trauma in its life, it’s been known to comfort or buddy up to someone that has trauma in their life…they kind of sense that.”

About three years ago, Holm started communicating with a soldier who is currently serving in Afghanistan. She was always telling him about her love of horses and how they helped her through difficult times in her life. He mentioned programs in the U.S. that used horses to help soldiers, which led Holm to research programs in Canada that do the same thing.

This is how she found out about the Can Praxis program in Alberta. Although it is located in Alberta, the program does help soldiers Canada wide and has also opened their doors to RCMP, EMTs and firefighters.

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“I think everybody’s been helped at some time by a service member or maybe in the future …. They have our backs, it’s about time that there’s a place for them to go when they need the help,” Holm said.

Can Praxis was scheduled to have a PTSD awareness ride running throughout all of August but due to lack of help, had to cancel. Holm took this as her opportunity.

“I asked [the organizer at Can Praxis] if he would feel if it was alright if I did a day ride back at home and send proceeds up there and he thought it was an amazing idea,” she said.

From there, she started planning, advertising, planning out a trail and getting some help together.

The ride was originally scheduled for Aug. 24 but bad weather caused it to be canceled. On Sept. 14, Holm was happy with the way her event turned out.

Seventeen riders came to the event and raised about $720 in donations. She is hoping to make this an annual event and has some people that are already on board to help out.

Although she has no direct experience with PTSD herself, Holm has been making herself more aware of it.

“This older friend of mine, he’s expressed that he has it so I’m kind of his go to person if he’s in a moment I promised I’d be there for that one person for that call… if he’s in a dark place and needs somebody to talk to, I made a promise that I would be there and be that one person.” 

panews@rawlco.com

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