MT MT - Meghan Rouns, 27, horseback riding, horse found, phone found in saddlebag, McMaster Hills Rec Area, NE of Helena, 4 Oct 2024 *Active Search*

[Angelcat13]

I don’t believe we’ll ever know if wind played a role. We would need a witness to be sure. The gusts were particularly strong that day, so LE speculated wind played a part and it seems to be a good theory.

But I agree that I don’t think she chose to go into the water. Her family would know if it was normal for her to ride into the water, maybe she was very confident that her horse was sure-footed and had no worries. But knowing she was unable to swim would make me guess it wasn’t her choice. Just speculation, moo

I may have missed it, but do we KNOW she couldn’t swim? I feel it’s more likely she was either unconscious or tangled in tack under water.

 

[Angelcat13]

The rear cinch or flank cinch is meant to secure the back end of the western saddle so it doesn't pop up when a horse does athletic things. The rear cinch should fit snuggly but not tight. You bring up a very good point. If the horse had spooked and reacted, or kicked with a hind leg at something, it could get a rear hoof caught in a loose back cinch. That would account for the kind of thrashing around seen in in the map of the ride. Horses can also get hooves caught in stirrups, or bridles caught on saddle horns. Friend had a horse reach back to scratch an itch with its teeth and the horse caught the shank of its bit in the stirrup. So much can happen.

Here is an article about fitting a rear cinch: Western Back Cinches: Key Facts.
And an image from the article: View attachment 536866

Thanks for posting. I mostly rode English - Hunter-Jumpers. I rode VERY little Western when I was a kid living out West, but not enough to remember specifics about the tack. My daughter used to do Hunter-Jumpers but switched to eventing a frw years ago. We sometimes forget just how dangerous this can be (my mom is amazed that the cross-country riders have to wear an armband with their medical info & emergency contact info) but I truly believe the true love of horses is somehow in your DNA.

 

[LadyL]

I'm not sure that fear of water is a reason to avoid swim lessons. It should be a parent's responsibility to teach their kids to swim, just as they teach them to walk or use a bathroom or read or ride a bike. It's a life skill. MOO.

some kids take swimming lessons and just cannot learn
my brother retook them as an adult and even the teacher gave up because he couldn't even float much less swim
and I'm the same way - our parents got all 7 of us the same swim lessons as children

 

[Linear13]

I would say that her ability or inability to swim may be a moot point in that I believe, MOO, that she most likely was thrown while the horse was in the water for whatever reason and hit her head or was knocked unconscious. The horse may have spooked and ran into the water or she may have been crossing a shallow place in the water and it spooked. I don’t think there is any scenario where she voluntarily got off the horse to get into the water to swim. If thrown into the water the human body is coming off that horse at a pretty good uncontrolled velocity and hitting the water is akin to hitting a concrete slab. As any of the people who have survived jumping or falling from bridges (or other high places into water) can tell you. It’s not like falling off a diving board into a swimming pool. The water is murky and full of rock and debris. If she wasn’t knocked unconscious she may have not been able to tell which way was up. Her leg may have been caught in the strap and she couldn’t reach up to get it undone while the horse drug her through the water. I doubt that I could free my leg if caught in a stirrup. I have watched rodeos where it happens when the horse is bucking and wild..it takes several strong guys to get the rider free. So if the horse spooked and was wild and bucking or running and dragging her I doubt she could free herself.

Terrible tragedy and I wish her family well and hope for peace and closure. Rest in peace.

As an addendum…I live in the western part of NC and we have many lakes and large creeks. No school (k-12) that I know of has a pool. There is a small college that has a pool in a neighboring town across the GA line. My town even had people who fought against building a town pool that you pay to swim at. I just googled ‘western nc schools with swimming pools’ and it looks like no school west of buncomb county NC has a swimming pool. I know for a fact that there are none in the three counties surrounding me. I have never even seen lessons offered in the newspapers. Not to say there aren’t at the pool that finally got built (that went under and was bought by a private citizen and reopened so technically still no ‘public’ pool). Anyway just thinking out loud because some of you guys must have had schools much bigger or with better funding than we have here in western NC. Some of our schools do have high school swim teams but they practice at the town pool mentioned above.

ETA - the Cherokee Reservation high school has a pool. It is probably the only one west of Asheville that does.

 

[cutter99]

Someone earlier in this thread commented that she may have willingly waded into the water and then the horse may have spooked and she came off but got hung up on something and the seemingly frantic movements caught on the AllTrails app may have been the horse panicking further as he tried to dislodge her - not intentionally, but just being terrified of what he didn’t understand was hanging on. When I first saw this picture I immediately was concerned that she may have gotten caught in the strap that is hanging loosely behind her leg. I’m not very familiar with Western tack but my daughter explained the purpose of the strap but I forget what she said it was called. So it sounds like there’s a purpose to it, but it also looked like a potential safety hazard.

That is a rear cinch, that helps to stabilizer the rear of the saddle, especially when moving quickly and turning, etc. There is also a connector strap that runs between both the front and rear cinches, and if it is not used it can cause a very bad reaction from the horse should the rear cinch slip back.

In that picture, the rear cinch is not properly adjusted. It should not be tight like the front cinch, but should be snug so the horse cannot get a foot caught in it. It also needs to be snug, or it defeats the purpose of it being used. There is a connector strap being used properly to keep the rear cinch from slipping back.

Could that contribute to an accident? Yes.

Please note I am just providing facts, not judgment.

 

[georgiajean]

That is a rear cinch, that helps to stabilizer the rear of the saddle, especially when moving quickly and turning, etc. There is also a connector strap that runs between both the front and rear cinches, and if it is not used it can cause a very bad reaction from the horse should the rear cinch slip back.

In that picture, the rear cinch is not properly adjusted. It should not be tight like the front cinch, but should be snug so the horse cannot get a foot caught in it. It also needs to be snug, or it defeats the purpose of it being used. There is a connector strap being used properly to keep the rear cinch from slipping back.

Could that contribute to an accident? Yes.

Please note I am just providing facts, not judgment.

I looked back through MR's FB and noted that in most of the pictures riding horses in saddles, she is in smaller saddles that do not have rear cinches. And in a couple that have reach cinches, they are adjusted properly. So who knows why it was so loose in the one photo.

 

[Tower]

Many I think do, but I wouldn't go so far as to say most. The district (entire district.) that I attended didn't actually have a swimming pool. Since that was 30 years ago, and they've installed a new building, I went and investigated to see if they've added one, and I can't find any evidence of a swimming pool in the photos or plans available online. A lot of poorer/smaller districts (and the one I attended was and is one gigantic building for grades K-12) just don't have the funds for one. Not to say schools shouldn't teach it! They absolutely should whenever they are able! But again, the access just isn't always there. If Meghan went to school in Nowheresville, MT with 20 people in her graduating class (for example) then I'd bet there's a good chance the school didn't have one.

My kids attend the 4th largest school district in the US, 300,000 kids and none of the schools have a pool. Ii’s the city and county surrounding Las Vegas, NV and it’s hotter than hell here, too, so I was shocked since my own childhood school district had a pool at every high school.

 

[cutter99]

I don’t believe we’ll ever know if wind played a role. We would need a witness to be sure. The gusts were particularly strong that day, so LE speculated wind played a part and it seems to be a good theory.

But I agree that I don’t think she chose to go into the water. Her family would know if it was normal for her to ride into the water, maybe she was very confident that her horse was sure-footed and had no worries. But knowing she was unable to swim would make me guess it wasn’t her choice. Just speculation, moo

There are many times riders will take horses into the water for many different reasons, most common being to let the horse drink. If you are out for a few hours, you are most likely going to for the sake of the horse, as water and dehydration can play a vital role in horse health.

If it were a particularly hot or humid day, horses can lose a lot of hydration during a ride due to sweating. There are some days my guys sweat just riding on the trailer to get to where we are going. A good horseman will take every opportunity to water their horse.

Based on the pictures of Meghan with her horses, I would think she would have been that type of horseman.

I don’t think she would have taken the horse in far, like in an attempt to swim, but a wreck could still happen very easily in shallow water.

 

[NervousNellie]

Are we seriously blaming this woman for her own death because she never learned to swim? FOR WHATEVER REASON?!?!

 

[Angelcat13]

That is a rear cinch, that helps to stabilizer the rear of the saddle, especially when moving quickly and turning, etc.

In that picture, the rear cinch is not properly adjusted. It should not be tight like the front cinch, but should be snug so the horse cannot get a foot caught in it. It also needs to be snug, or it defeats the purpose of it being used.

Could that contribute to an accident? Yes.

Please note I am just providing facts, not judgment.

I, too, was not judging Meghan and that is why I didn’t post my concern about the cinch when I saw the photo - before we knew the ending. I didn’t ever want to appear as though I was blaming her. My heart breaks for her, her family & friends and her horse(s) & pets. All will deeply miss her. Hopefully her family will continue to love her horse - like Annie Goodwin’s family, Fedarman B & Boyd Martin.

‘Riding for Annie’: Horse and trainer look to honor late owner at Olympics

Annie Goodwin died tragically when her horse fell while training. Her trainer – and her horse – will now look to carry out her Olympic dreams.

www.nbcphiladelphia.com

 

[Tower]

There are many times riders will take horses into the water for many different reasons, most common being to let the horse drink. If you are out for a few hours, you are most likely going to for the sake of the horse, as water and dehydration can play a vital role in horse health.

If it were a particularly hot or humid day, horses can lose a lot of hydration during a ride due to sweating. There are some days my guys sweat just riding on the trailer to get to where we are going. A good horseman will take every opportunity to water their horse.

Based on the pictures of Meghan with her horses, I would think she would have been that type of horseman.

I don’t think she would have taken the horse in far, like in an attempt to swim, but a wreck could still happen very easily in shallow water.

Thank you for the description, makes a lot of sense. The AllTrails track looks like the horse was in the water pretty far, but the map may not accurately reflect lower water levels in October or Meghan may not have intended to get out that far.

 

[Knox]

Just catching up, is there a link where it states Meghan didn’t know how to swim? I missed that in earlier news stories if it was said.

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

Not necessarily. But we can agree to disagree. Some parents may force their children to try to swim without respecting their child's wishes or fear and then some parents will let their children decide. Children shouldn't be forced into doing something just because the parents will be happy. MOO

Has nothing at all to do with the parents being happy. It's safety, that's all. It's like teaching kids that they should wear a helmet, wear a seatbelt in a car, that they shouldn't play in the street. It's a safety thing that all kids need to learn, whether they learn in school or at home. MOO. As for fear and anxiety, actually, the worst thing you can do when it comes to anxiety is teach or enable avoidance. The medical literature is very clear on that.

Even if people avoid water because they can't swim, you never know when you'll be put in a situation where you need to get out of water, like in Meghan's case, unfortunately.

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

I may have missed it, but do we KNOW she couldn’t swim? I feel it’s more likely she was either unconscious or tangled in tack under water.

She could not swim, per MSM.

"Search teams located the woman’s hat, phone and horse, which looked like it had been in the Missouri River, but did not immediately find her remains. The horse did not like being in the water and Rouns could not swim."

Body of missing woman who vanished while horse riding recovered

Officials found the woman’s horse, hat and phone after she disappeared

www.the-independent.com

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

Just catching up, is there a link where it states Meghan didn’t know how to swim? I missed that in earlier news stories if it was said.

Body of missing woman who vanished while horse riding recovered

Officials found the woman’s horse, hat and phone after she disappeared

www.the-independent.com

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

Are we seriously blaming this woman for her own death because she never learned to swim? FOR WHATEVER REASON?!?!

Of course not! No one is blaming her. Of course we all feel bad for her. She's the victim here. We're reflecting on the case and wondering if anything would have made a difference to save her life, just as we do in all cases. Like when a missing teen is courted online. We blame the perp 100%. But we also talk about social media access for teens and safety around it. Or when a missing person's case involves a hiker and we talk about safety when hiking and how to insure you don't get into trouble. It's not blaming people for their misfortune. It's examining how to prevent it from happening to someone else.

MOO

 

[Angelcat13]

She could not swim, per MSM.

"Search teams located the woman’s hat, phone and horse, which looked like it had been in the Missouri River, but did not immediately find her remains. The horse did not like being in the water and Rouns could not swim."

Body of missing woman who vanished while horse riding recovered

Officials found the woman’s horse, hat and phone after she disappeared

www.the-independent.com

Ahhh, thanks. I missed that.

 

[Knox]

Body of missing woman who vanished while horse riding recovered

Officials found the woman’s horse, hat and phone after she disappeared

www.the-independent.com

Thanks. Noting no source was identified in stating the info about the horse didn’t like the water and Meghan couldn’t swim. Both may be true, just curious who gave that information.