Breaking a leg

[wsanto]

I am not an historian and haven't researched the subject of Booth's horse falling on him during his escape to any large degree. But I have read Kauffman's contention that this was the mechanism of injury for the broken fibula and not the leap to the stage. Kauffman's evidence seems to be the story Herold relayed to Lloyd and Mudd that night and possibly evidence the animal was injured or marred by the fall. Of course he discounts Booth's own claim in his diary that he broke his leg during his leap to the stage.

It seems to me that Herold would have made up any story besides admitting that Booth broke it during his landing on the stage as he lept from the private boxes having just assassinated the President.

As relayed in the story provided by the OP, the injury in its acute stage would not be terribly limiting as the fibula is not a weight bearing bone under normal circumstances. With his adreniline at top level during his initial escape out of Washington, Booth probably didn't even know he was injured until he slowed his ride and began to feel the throb of injury as the swelling in his leg increased inside his boot.

I would think that a horse falling on you as you are the rider would possibly break your fibula but also result in other injuries--potential bruised ribs, shoulder sprains, hand and wrist sprains, crush injury to soft tissue in legs and flank, concussion, etc. I don't know of any evidence that Booth was suffering from any other injuries during his escape.