That’s a pain in the neck.
A young bull rider is lucky to be alive after being viciously gored in the throat during a rodeo — spouting over two gallons of blood in front of shocked audience members, a disturbing new video shows.
Zachary Naegele, 24, was competing in the Conley Invitational in Palmetto, Florida last week when he was stabbed in the neck just seconds into his ride on a massive, angry bull.
Video from the Feb. 7 fiasco shows Naegele strapped in and holding on tight to his penned-up bull — moments before he’s left hanging on for dear life as the door swings open and the bull starts to kick.
The burgeoning professional rider, with four years of bull-riding experience under his belt, slides toward the bull’s head during the animal’s violent dance and falls over its front end — as the beast’s horn punctures his neck, the footage shows.
In a state of shock, he runs to the side of the dusty pit with his hands to his throat.
Video shows him bleeding profusely onto his clothes and the ground and struggling to breathe — but first responders were able to arrive in time to provide life-saving treatment.
“I could feel myself going in and out from the amount of blood loss in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I had to fight to keep breathing,” Naegele told ABC27.
The 24-year-old said he lost more than two gallons of blood from the horn wound which severed his small carotid artery, according to the report.
Naegele had successful surgery to repair the life-threatening wound and was discharged from the ICU earlier this week — though he faces a recovery that could last up to eight weeks.
“I know that God has bigger plans for me in life; now it’s time to get healed up,” Naegele told the outlet.
The fearless young man says that someday soon he’ll be back, mounted on a bull’s shoulders.
“I most definitely plan to get back into bull riding. My goal is to make it onto one of the PBR teams, specifically the Oklahoma Wildcatters,” he said, still wrapped with gauze.
