NICOLE TEENY:  I’m standing in the desert. The dry earth beneath me. A few delicate plants and grasses sway at my feet. In the distance, I hear a rumble. I can’t quite see what’s ahead. But the rumble starts to swell. And that is when I see them, horses, hundreds of them.

NICOLE TEENY:  As they draw closer, the grasses start to bend under their hooves. They’re powerful, unstoppable. And as a mountain of dust rises before the herd, it blocks them out of my sight. There’s a strange stillness that just shivers over me. And in the silence, I hear a voice.

MZ HORSE:  This land is mine now. You cannot outrun me.

NICOLE TEENY:  Then the dust clears and they gore through. These wild horses just tower over me, destroying everything in their path. And if I don’t move, I’m going to be next, unless I outrun them. I wake up in an ambulance, covered in blood. Why am I here?

NICOLE TEENY:  Why does my body feel ravaged and trampled? Something feral has been unleashed inside of me, something unbridled. It’s like I’m caught up in a stampede of wild horses. Yes, horses, violent and shredding through my flesh, untameable. That feeling stays with me like that desert haze.

NICOLE TEENY:  I cannot let them overtake me again. I need to outrun them. Gotta keep runnin’. (UNINTEL) game time when I can. This is my final shot. I hear some horses. I do not wanna get run over. So I don’t know if I stand a chance to beat a horse. Oh, my god.

NICOLE TEENY:  Oh, my god. Face-to-face with death, I set off on a five year journey that would take me to the outer limits of human endurance, to wrangle the animals inside of me, to settle the battle between mind and body, girl and horse, and to answer a question that has been echoing inside of me for so long. Can I outrun a horse?

NICOLE TEENY:  I’m Nicole Teeny. And this is GIRL v. HORSE  episode one, I Want to Race a Horse. I’ve always been an active person. I grew up in Tacoma, Washington in a big Lebanese-American family with lots of cousins, cousins who I’d co-op into all sorts of adventures. I was always moving.

LYNETTE:  You had a lot of energy.

STEVE:  You probably didn’t pay (LAUGH) attention to where your feet were going all the time. You were going in one direction, your feet were going in another direction sometimes.

NICOLE TEENY:  That’s my dad, Steve, and my mom, Lynette (PH). Okay, so I was clumsy. My knees kissed every sharp corner. I was tiny, gangly, so much so that instead of calling me by my first name, Nicole, all the kids at school decided that my last name, Teeny, was a better fit. Teeny. It stuck. I wanted to prove I wasn’t as puny as I looked. So I tried out for every single sports team and failed miserably.

STEVE:  Didn’t take us long to (LAUGH) figure out that you would do better at maybe a running sport.

NICOLE TEENY:  Unlike volleyball or soccer, running didn’t require hand-eye coordination. I loved it.

STEVE:  You weren’t, like, a rock star, but you did fine.

LYNETTE:  I thought you were average. I don’t remember winning or not winning anything.

NICOLE TEENY:  Parents. They keep ya humble. Okay, so I wasn’t a track prodigy. But I wasn’t last of the pack either. And for me, that was saying something. I felt strong. My stringy, squealy muscles and bones were growing. Each run, I pushed myself to go harder, faster, longer.

NICOLE TEENY:  And by the end of middle school, I was already fantasizing about the day I’d run my first marathon. When I turned 18, I moved to New York with dreams of becoming a filmmaker. I was often too cheap to pay for the subway fare, so I literally ran my errands. In my mom’s words…

LYNETTE:  Your shoes are your tires.

NICOLE TEENY:  Coming home from work or just grabbin’ some bananas, I bet I clocked every single street in Manhattan and at least half of Brooklyn. In the chaos of the city, running grounded me. It was the one thing that could get my mind in sync with my body.

NICOLE TEENY:  Going for a run was like getting a Star Trek body scan. I could tell how well I slept, the lingering effects of a beer I drank three days ago, or that I was just a few days away from my period. As I ran, my lungs tingled, heart surged. And my heightened senses reminded me that I was alive.

NICOLE TEENY:  No matter what was going on in my life, running put my body in poetry with my mind. My mind opened to the horizon, rooted into the ground, and lifted like a balloon. With every step, I’m pulled into pavement, cold wind, passing smells, escaping bright screens, long list and mental cloud, held into movement, senses, and sweaty brow, washing out should-haves, faux pas, party fouls.

NICOLE TEENY:  Together, my mind, my body. I’m living. I’m Teeny. I am now. I cover the Earth in minutes, seconds, breaths, breaths, breath. When I ran, I found myself thinking a lot about the connection between the mind and the body, something that also intrigued the French philosopher, Rene Descartes.

NICOLE TEENY:  Descartes thought that we were made up of two separate entities, the body, tangible and physical, and then this separate sovereign substance known as the mind. As I propelled myself forward, I could feel Descartes’ twin forces at work within me. My mind would say, “Push.” And my body would be forced to follow. I believe my mind was the melody and my body was the harmony. In 2015, I was in my late twenties, going through a tough breakup. So I started running farther.

ANNOUNCER:  Athletes, are you ready? Athletes, on your mark.

NICOLE TEENY:  I ran a half marathon and got 11th in my division. I was hooked.

ALL:  C-H-A-R-C. Wanna piece of royalty. Go get it. Ah, ah, go get it. Crown Heights Running Club.

NICOLE TEENY:  I joined my roommate’s running club, signed up for a marathon just a few months later, and I laced up my sneakers. I crossed the finish line in the top ten, under four hours. Your girl was on top of the world. I felt so in tune with my body.

NICOLE TEENY:  I needed to run more. So I opened my laptop and started signing up for races. Over the next few years, I spent all my time running. I spoke about my run club for an article in Women’s Running magazine. I even started reading books about running, including this one book that everyone was talking about.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE:  Born to Run, the bestselling running book of all time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE:  Born to Run fueled the barefoot running craze.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE:  Born to Run absolutely transformed the running community.

NICOLE TEENY:  Born to Run. It is arguably one of the most popular running books of all time. And, yeah, the book sparked the trend for those weird toe shoes. But what caught my attention was this one chapter of the book. It talks about a scientific theory by paleoanthropologist, Dr. Daniel Lieberman.

NICOLE TEENY:  It’s called the Endurance Running Hypothesis. His theory suggests that the world’s best runners aren’t cheetahs, antelope, or other quadrupeds. It’s humans. But I think, “That can’t be right. Didn’t I watch a human try and fail to outrun a zebra on that reality TV show from the 2000s, Man vs. Beast?”

NICOLE TEENY:  In one episode, American Olympic gold medalist, Shawn Crawford, loses a 100 meter race to Zippity, a zebra.

NICOLE TEENY:  Zippity punctuates his win with a little buck kick at the end. Shawn couldn’t beat a zebra or most other quadrupeds in a sprint. But it turns out, Born to Run wasn’t talking about short distances. It was talking about long distances. It states that when the distances are long enough, humans can outrun almost any animal.

NICOLE TEENY:  And it particularly points out one animal, a horse. When I read that, I was shocked. And honestly, I couldn’t believe it. A human could outrun a horse? Really? I filed it away as a wild bucket list item, because I’ve already signed up for my next big challenge, my second marathon, the 2018 New York City Marathon. It would be a tougher course, but that was okay. I thrived on the challenge, until the horses ruined everything. It was on a Monday just a few months before the marathon when it happens. I was on vacation with my mom in California.

LYNETTE:  It was late morning. We went to a couple of thrift stores. And then– we came back to the house. And I believe that we were sitting there on the couch. And then…

NICOLE TEENY:  A wave of exhaustion rushes over me. It’s tiredness like anything I’ve ever felt before. Okay, I haven’t been sleeping well. I’ve been running a lot. Could that be it? Work has been so stressful. I’m just so tired. The glass coffee table is in front of me. And I reach behind the couch. And…

LYNETTE]:  You just toppled over head first and barely– I mean, amazingly, you exactly fell down right in the middle of it. Like, wow, you missed that table. I’m thinking, “What’s goin’ on? Why are you doing that?” And then I saw your body start jerking. And then I tried to roll you over a little bit, and your eyes were straight ahead, and no response. You weren’t responding to your name. And you were jerking. You were having a seizure in front of me.

NICOLE TEENY:  I’m unconscious. The seizure rushes through my body like a stampede.

MZ HORSE:  You cannot outrun me.

NICOLE TEENY:  Blood. That’s the first thing I remember when I wake up. I’m covered in it. It’s sliding down my mouth and drenching my shirt. My consciousness flickers back in snapshots. Two strange men are hovering above me in the ambulance. Where am I? Who’s that?

NICOLE TEENY:  I see mom, but she disappears then behind closing doors. My memory cuts. The next time I wake up, I’m in the emergency room. The doctor tells me it was a seizure. He explains that all my muscles clenched and my jaw locked, trapping my squishy tongue.

NICOLE TEENY:  That explains all the blood. With my brain unable to tell my body to gag or even breathe, I nearly drowned in my own blood. I’m a little bewildered. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. The doc doesn’t know why I had the seizure. No one does. He discharges me with a directive to see a neurologist.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  My name is Amy Jongeling and I am your neurologist.

NICOLE TEENY:  When I meet Dr. Jongeling, the first thing I notice about her are her colorful, chunky high heels poking out of her lab coat. Psychedelic shoes. How could I not trust her? She starts by explaining to me that seizures start with the brain. She says our brains are constantly running multiple network patterns at a time with all the different areas working together in synchrony. In musical terms, it’s kind of like an orchestra.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  There are multiple instruments playing different parts. The strings might be, like, your vision, like, your visual processes. And the trumpets might be your auditory or hearing processes. And the reed section might be your judgment or decision making.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  All of these things are– are– are functions of the brain that are all happening at the same time and yet all sort of coming together in a harmony, in a pattern that’s recognizable as something that’s beautiful. Just the brain does that, but, like, to the– to the billionth factor.

NICOLE TEENY:  But if something interrupts the orchestra, you start to lose that beauty really quick.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  So a seizure would be, like, one trumpet in the brass section just decides to play one note over, and over, and over again. And the brain is like, “All right, the whole section, you’re out.” (LAUGH) And then it’s, like, disrupting everybody else. It’s a little bit of ugliness imposed on all the rest of this beauty. And– and the brain works pretty hard to shut it down as quickly as possible.

NICOLE TEENY]:  When the brain tries to get the music back in sync, sometimes it’s only one area.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  Somebody with a focal seizure, yeah, maybe it’s just a few of the brass players.

NICOLE TEENY:  You might just space out, see a weird visual, or feel like you’re having an out-of-body experience. But other times…

DR. AMY JONGELING]:  Someone who’s had a grand mal convulsion, really the whole brain is affected.

NICOLE TEENY:  And if you’ve ever seen a seizure on TV, my seizure probably looked like what you’re picturing, shaking on the ground, foaming at the mouth. You get the idea.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  It’s possible that this seizure is a one-off. You know, we don’t know what caused it. We don’t know if it’s gonna happen again.

NICOLE TEENY:  So Dr. Jongeling wants to see if my seizure has any obvious cause. She orders up a battery of tests, including a rendezvous in the hospital for a two day EEG. I’m hesitant. Is this really necessary? But she insists.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE:  Any metal implants inside your body?

NICOLE TEENY:  No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE:  Have you had MRIs before?

NICOLE TEENY:  The hospital tech hooks me up to the EEG. Wires and tubes chain me to the hospital bed. Well, there goes two perfectly good days of marathon training. She slaps clear goo on the back of one of many electrodes, and then finds a spot, and fixes it right there in the middle of my head. It feels like dogs licking my scalp. And there’s 26 of them. She reaches deep in my shirt and then puts two electrodes on my chest. Take me to dinner first. (LAUGH)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE:  Sorry. (LAUGH) Sorry, sorry. One more time.

NICOLE TEENY:  So is it possible that I just happened to have gotten a seizure?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE:  Anybody can have a seizure. That’s why you’re here. Hopefully you’ll never have another one.

NICOLE TEENY:  Yeah. See? Anyone could have a seizure, right? I’m going to be fine. I have to be. Dr. Jongeling tells me that she looked at my EEG results and that they were a little abnormal, but not conclusive.

DR. AMY JONGELING]:  We are gonna have to see what happens.

NICOLE TEENY:  See? It’s not a big deal.

DR. AMY JONGELING]:  It may be epilepsy, but it’s not definitely epilepsy.

NICOLE TEENY:  Epilepsy? It catches me off guard. That was even on the table? But she tells me that if I have just one more unprovoked seizure that it’s likely that they’ll continue for the rest of my life.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  Epilepsy is a propensity to get seizures or it means that you are a person who is at higher risk than other people of getting seizures, which in general are not desirable things to have. But you have to show that there’s a pattern, a predisposition. And one seizure doesn’t really make a pattern or a predisposition.

NICOLE TEENY:  I just had one freak seizure. How could I possibly have epilepsy? It’s probably just lack of sleep or stress. I won’t have another one. I know my body. I have my Star Trek body scans. I’m healthy. I’m a runner. Because if I really had epilepsy, I would’ve sensed something wrong. Right?

NICOLE TEENY:  When Dr. Jongeling discharges me, I do the one thing that makes me feel control over my body. I run. One mile. I never felt anything abnormal. Two miles. How could I have missed something this big? Ten miles. It was just one seizure. And I keep on running.

NICOLE TEENY:  As I finish my run, I push the seizure to the back of my mind and I focus on my goal, the New York City Marathon. I brush up on my training plan. And before I know it, it’s October. I’ve got a date lined up with a cute girl I’ve been texting.

NICOLE TEENY:  And I’m diving into a new film project. The marathon is just one month away. Things are lookin’ good. One morning, I’m staying at a friend’s house, when she wakes up to a loud thump. She comes to check in on me. I’m not in the bed.

NICOLE TEENY:  I’m sprawled on the floor, my eyes open, glossed over. And I gaze ahead like a corpse. The horses are back in charge. Am I awake? (UNINTEL PHRASES). Is it possible? After I gain consciousness, put my hand on my mouth. My tongue is all torn up. Ugh, I’m not gonna be able to run for a while. Will I still be able to run the marathon? I call my parents. Spoke to the neurologist. It’s kinda hard to talk, ’cause I bit my tongue a lot.

LYNETTE:  I know, honey. I’m sorry. You know, this is really a life-changing thing for you.

NICOLE TEENY:  I was almost free. It was official. I had epilepsy. It’s so scary.

LYNETTE:  I know. I’ve– I’m really s– been scared for you. And just thinking what does that mean for you?

NICOLE TEENY:  My parents were scared because they had just seen what happened to Brandon (PH). Brandon and his parents are close family friends. His dad, Peter, works at the church in Tacoma. And his mom, Julie, is the director of the Christmas musical. They all do bible study together. And low-key, Brandon was brilliant. Julie quizzed him all the time.

JULIE:  You could say 762 times 894. And he would– within seconds, he would go, “Blah-lada-la.” He’d tell you the answer. And I’d get my calculator out and go, “Oh, you’re right.”

NICOLE TEENY:  But ever since he was a baby, Brandon had epilepsy.

JULIE:  It started at the end of his ninth month. That was his first seizure. It was a febrile seizure.

NICOLE TEENY:  And the seizures kept happening. He spent his 17th birthday in the hospital.

JULIE:  He thought that was gonna be his miracle, to have the brain surgery.

NICOLE TEENY:  But by the end of the month, Brandon had another seizure.

JULIE:  Brandon did kind of go through a little bit of, “It didn’t work.” And then he– he rose up again and kept goin’.

NICOLE TEENY:  By his late teens, the seizures got worse. One time, my dad came over for their usual bible study, and he recalls Brandon going upstairs to take a shower.

STEVE:  And then we heard a thud.

NICOLE TEENY:  So they go check on him.

STEVE:  And he’s fallen in the shower. And– he had a seizure and he was not responsive at that point. And started CPR on him and continued on CPR. And the medics came– but he wasn’t– he didn’t make it. He was dead.

NICOLE TEENY:  The following week, hundreds of people came to his memorial at the church. With epilepsy, there is just so many whys. Why does it develop? Why is it managed for some people, but not for others? Why isn’t there a cure? And why do some people suddenly die? Dr. Jongeling tells me, “No one knows why some seizures are fatal, but every year, more than one in 1,000 people with epilepsy die without warning.” It’s called SUDEP, sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.

DR. AMY JONGELING:  So it’s uncommon, but needs to be talked about. The more seizures you have, the more likely you are gonna have a SUDEP event. But it– it’s happened to folks who were relatively well-controlled.

NICOLE TEENY:  Brandon was at the time the only person I knew who had epilepsy. The one day, he walked into the shower, and then never walked out. I can’t even tell myself that being athletic is gonna save me. I know what happened to Florence Griffith Joyner, aka, Flo-Jo.

ANNOUNCER:  We are standing by for the 100 meter dash for the women. Lane one is open and quickly. Florence Griffith Joyner blowing away the field. It cannot be. No one can run that fast. They are announcing world record, the biggest accomplishment in track and field in ten years. If this is a world record in the women…

NICOLE TEENY:  Flo-Jo was the fastest woman ever recorded on planet Earth. Flo-Jo’s 100 and 200 meter world records from over 30 years ago still stand today. But in 1996, she had a seizure while on a flight. And just two years later, she went to sleep one night and never woke up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE:  Medical examiners in California today announced the cause of death of Olympic gold medal sprinter, Florence Griffith Joyner. They said she suffocated during an epileptic seizure while she was sleeping.

NICOLE TEENY:  Epilepsy killed the world’s fastest woman. I knew I could die or would die one day. But it always felt so theoretical. Now with the stampede inside of me, every minute, I’m thinking, “Could this be my minute?” I try closing my eyes, listening to my body like I would during a run.

NICOLE TEENY:  Can I hear anything? But this time, my body is eerily silent. My life is so different now. I can’t drive. I’m not invincible. I shouldn’t drink. I need to be cautious. I shouldn’t sleep late. Who am I? Or even take a long soak in the tub.

NICOLE TEENY:  I should push myself. From the outside, I seem okay, which is why epilepsy is called an invisible disability. But on the inside, I am not okay. At any minute, my brain could burst with uncontrolled electricity, flooding my nervous system, and plunging me into another stampede.

NICOLE TEENY:  I think again to the philosopher, Rene Descartes. He believed the mind or the soul was located in the brain. And it was connected to the body through the nervous system. And it was filled with animal spirits. It used those spirits to control the body, rippling through the nerves, and into the flesh. Right now, my mind feels so disconnected from my body. And the only way I know how to rebuild that connection is to run. And thank god I can still do that.

MARIEL:  I knew that you were a runner before we even met. It was on your dating app. It’s probably one of the first things that I learned about you.

NICOLE TEENY:  After my second seizure, I almost canceled my date with Mariel (PH), that cute girl that I’d been texting. But I didn’t do it. On our first date, I bring her an offering from my roommate’s pet chicken, Crooks (PH).

MARIEL:  We met up. And you brought me a gift. And I was like, “Oh, I wonder what she got me.” So I open it (LAUGH) and there’s two fresh eggs in there.

NICOLE TEENY:  Six hours later, we can’t stop talking. So she walks me across the bridge from Manhattan back to Brooklyn. While she isn’t really a runner, she is an athlete and played professional basketball back in Lebanon, where she grew up. Mariel is the kinda person who has the same t-shirt in three different colors.

NICOLE TEENY:  We bond over exercise, sci-fi, the theater, our Lebanese roots, and our love for the sea. I tease her that I’m taller, even though it’s only a three quarters of an inch. She laughs at all my jokes, even the bad ones, which is lucky for me, because her smile scrambles my insides more than Crooks’ eggs for breakfast. Things are easy. I feel safe.

ALL: Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Oh, happy birthday to you. Woo.

NICOLE TEENY:  All right, (FOREIGN LANGUAGE). Can you do it? Wish– wish something.

ALL:  Woo! 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE:  That was pretty good.

NICOLE TEENY:  What did you wish for?

MARIEL:  It’s a wish. I’ll tell you later.

NICOLE TEENY:  Oh. Okay. (LAUGHTER) Ever since my diagnosis, some days are normal. I get my $1 bun from the Chinese bakery around the corner, push buttons on a keyboard, and then run my errands. And so far, the meds I’ve been prescribed have been keeping those big seizures at bay. But on other days…

MARIEL:  Are you feeling better?

NICOLE TEENY:  It’s better when I close my eyes.

MARIEL:  Okay, keep them closed.

NICOLE TEENY:  More than likely, this is an aura. Auras are seizures that only involve a small part of the brain. I’m conscious, but it’s hard to talk, or move, or even open my eyes. On days that I get them, I can’t even do simple things like read a book or scroll on my phone. I definitely can’t run. But I’m not ready to give up on the marathon just yet. Because some days are good. And on one of those days, Mariel and I head uptown to get some fresh air.

MARIEL:  We went for a run. I think it was in Crescent Park, no?

NICOLE TEENY:  Van Cortlandt Park. It’s freeing to finally get outta the house. The buds on the trees are just starting to peek out as my legs shake off the spirits of yesterday. I can feel that crisp air in my lungs. And I take an occasional sprint. And then I loop back to Mariel who’s been walking behind me. She places her warm hand in my pocket. After covering some ground, we feel refreshed. We get back on the subway.

MARIEL:  We were coming on the train. And we were sitting by the door of the subway. And you started– I don’t know what started happening. You– you were like, “I need to get off this train.” And then you couldn’t even talk anymore. Suddenly, you couldn’t really move or walk. And you were having, like, some sort of seizure.

NICOLE TEENY:  The train was jam-packed as we pulled into the Times Square subway stop. And Mariel struggled to get me off the train.

MARIEL:  You fell on the floor as soon as we got out of the train on the subway platform. You fell on the floor. I don’t know. It happened so fast, right?

NICOLE TEENY:  After we get out of the train, Mariel is trying to hold me up on the platform. A kind women helps us out as we climb the stairs out of the subway. The emergency room. Once again. Except for this time, with me is someone very special.

MARIEL:  You had to go to the bathroom.

NICOLE TEENY:  I did?

MARIEL:  I think they brought you something, remember? ‘Cause they couldn’t let you until they had, like, done their tests. Or.

NICOLE TEENY:  They brought me a bedpan. Oh, my (LAUGHTER) god. Oh, my god. Even after witnessing me pee in a pan, Mariel sticks around. She cuddles next to me in the cot. It’s better with her here. Oh, yeah, I like to sometimes (UNINTEL). (LAUGH) ‘Cause you’re cute. So I just, like, squint a little bit just to– just to see a picture of you. (LAUGH)

MARIEL:  And then you tell me.

NICOLE TEENY:  Just let the picture of you kinda stain the back of my (LAUGH) eyelids.

MARIEL:  And then you go like, “You’re so cute.” (LAUGHTER)

NICOLE TEENY:  Yeah. The beeps of my vitals lull us to sleep that night, and then another night, and another, and another. It’s been a full week at this point. My legs burn to run. But the EEG leash tethers me to a four foot radius around the bed. And then a camera follows my every move, watching for a seizure.

NICOLE TEENY:  I’m getting antsy. But all the doctors can do right now is prescribe me another medication and tell me to wait. And then they tell me, “Until we figure it out,” I should push myself, “it’s best not to be alone.” I am not invincible. “And that includes running.”

NICOLE TEENY:  Who am I? I can hear Descartes raging animal spirits inside of me, kicking up dust. Descartes says these spirits connect our mind and our body. But mine have gone feral. Whenever the seizures erupt, I feel those unruly horses inside of me, rebelling, breaking free, and stampeding out of control.

NICOLE TEENY:  I can hear them taunting me now, ready to charge. I need to tame them, to beat them, to outrun them, to prove I am in control. I need to do something so big, so bold to defy these horses and defy this epilepsy. Running has always made me feel whole, like I truly know myself inside and out.

NICOLE TEENY:  What if I could harness that power, push it to the extreme to prove that I do have control over my body? Would it work? Would I feel like me again? I think back to that chapter in Born to Run about just how much stamina human runners can have, so much that over long distances, we’re stronger than horses. The idea had struck me as absurd, but no more absurd than this past year. So what if I tried to do it? What if I tried to race a horse? On the next episode of GIRL v. HORSE, I get to know my competition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE:  Well, first of all, the whole idea of a race between humans and horses is pretty preposterous.

NICOLE TEENY:  If you’re with someone having a tonic-clonic seizure, like I did with my mom, here’s what you need to do. Stay with the person and remove any sharp objects near them. Ease them to the floor and roll them over to their side immediately to help them breathe.

NICOLE TEENY:  Put something soft underneath their head to protect it and loosen any tight clothing. If the seizure lasts more than five minutes, or if it’s their first time having one, call 9-1-1 immediately. Try to time the seizure if you can and stay with them until they’re fully recovered. If you wanna learn more about epilepsy and seizure first aid, we’ve linked to some trusted websites in the show notes.

NICOLE TEENY:  GIRL v. HORSE was created, hosted, and executive produced by me, Nicole Teeny. Our story editor was Jazmine (JT) Green, with additional editing by Audrey Quinn. Mariah Dennis was our associate producer. Sound design and mixing by Michelle Macklem. Original music and theme song composed by Morgan Kibby. The mysterious horse was brought to life by Summer Banks. Our production assistant was Mariel Sarkis. For 30 for 30 Podcasts and ESPN, Adizah Eghan was our lead producer. Senior editorial producer was Preeti Varathan. Line producer was Catherine Sankey. Associate producer was Gus Navarro.