Tyler Kippes making his return to bull riding after life-threatening injury
March 24, 2025, is a date bull rider Tyler Kippes will never forget.
It’s also one he barely remembers.
Trauma can do that to a person. At just 22 years old, Kippes faced the biggest episode of his young life. Riding at Rodeo Austin in the Texas capital city, he suffered a significant blow to the chest from the horn of Diamond G Rodeo’s Demon Dancing.
“I had a lot of confusion,” said Kippes, now 23 and living in Stephenville, Texas. “I did black out. I tried getting up and walking out of the arena, but then I just passed out because I couldn’t get any air. I remember waking up on the stretcher. There were a lot of scattered thoughts going on.
“I figured I probably collapsed a lung, because it hurt to breath.”
It was more serious than that. Kippes’ tricuspid heart valve had ruptured. Two days after the injury, Dr. William Kessler had the young bull rider on the operating table to repair the ailment.
“(The blow) put so much pressure on his right heart that it ruptured the muscle that holds that valve in place,” said Kessler, a surgeon at the Institute for Cardiovascular Health, a clinical partnership between Ascension Seton and the University of Texas-Health-Austin. “He came to the hospital and just didn’t feel right, and they diagnosed him with tricuspid valve regurgitation. The heart still looked good.
“It had to do with the timing of the heart cycle and the way that bull’s horn hit him in the vest, and it was just bad timing.”
For an incident like this to happen, though, Kippes was in the right place. The valve was leaking “tremendously,” Kessler said. Kippes was “profoundly” short of breath, and his lungs had already gathered some fluid.
“He would have gotten sicker over time,” the doctor said. “The trauma center – which is part of the University of Texas, now Dell Seton Medical Center – thought he was stable enough that we could move him to our big, specialty hospital, which is the Seton main campus run by Ascension. We took a day or so to move him over to where we have all our toys and stuff to use.”
Common practice is for the valve to be replaced, but Kessler considered Kippes’ chosen profession. He wanted to make sure the cowboy could continue riding bulls. Kessler opted for repair instead of replacement.
“So, we fixed him, and then he wasn’t in the hospital too terribly long after we fixed him,” Kessler said. “His heart was working great. The leaky valve is like fixing a valve on an automobile; once you fix it, it runs well.
Kippes was born and raised in Colorado and was just shy of his eighth birthday when he was drawn to bull riding.
“I came up pretty unconventionally,” he said. “Nobody in my family had a Western background or anything like that. In fact, my mom made a Craiglslist ad searching for instruction on bull riding, because we had no connections whatsoever. Some guy replied to the article, and it just went from there. I started taking a little bit from everybody, starting with the sheep riding.
“There was just something about that adrenaline rush that I got for the first time. I didn’t know what it was at first, but I just knew the feeling and that I wanted to experience it again. No matter how long you’ve been doing it or how great you are at it, you’re never where you want to be. There’s such an art to it.”
He’s been creating his own sculpture ever since. He’s spent most of his lifetime chasing that rush and trying to better his talents. Like every person who has considered a life in the sport, Kippes has dreamed of being on its biggest stage, the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo presented by Tractor Supply Company.
“It’s a vision I’ve had since I was a little kid, and I’ve always told myself that I wouldn’t stop until I get there, regardless of all the little bumps in the road that come with it,” he said. “I’d hate to limit myself to just make it, but I’d love to be the best at what I do and get there for sure.”
The view from atop that mountain could be spectacular. It’s test of athleticism and will. He has gained a better understanding of that with age.
“I always thought everything was just to fall into my lap,” Kippes said. “From about 12 till 17, it pretty much did. But the day I turned 18, I had my first hip surgery, and I’ve had just about a major surgery every year. It’s been a little tough going. There’s been a lot of stop and go, so there’s not much consistency with that as you’d really like to see.”
Uniformity is imperative in sports. Regulated play leads to championships, but so does being in the game. Time spent on the sidelines dealing with injuries means time off the court. After open-heart surgery, Kippes spent nine months on injured reserve. He returned to the game he loves in time to compete at the Topeka (Kan.) New Years Eve Xtreme Bulls, then made his way to Denver for the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo, where he placed in the first round.
Since then, though, he’s been hampered by a nagging groin injury that has kept him out of the arena and back to rehab. The heart? It’s good.
“Dr. Kessler was definitely a lifesaver,” Kippes said. “That’s cliché, but I didn’t know what the final outcome was going to be until I woke up from surgery. I’ve had no complications, and he’s 100 percent certain that I won’t have to deal with anything in this for a long time if ever.”
Bill Kessler’s mom was raised on a ranch in Cochrane, Alberta, just northeast of Calgary. Rodeo and the Western way of life is appealing to him.
“All of her family are ranchers and rodeo people up there,” Kessler said. “I talked with Tyler’s family, and his first, second and third things to do were to get back to doing what he loves to do. I said, ‘There’s a possibility that we could fix this valve and make it as good as it was before,’ and he was 100 percent game for that.”
Valve replacement is the standard form of care for that type of injury, but that typically mean a lifestyle change for the patient.
“I’m going to guess the rodeo association would probably not let him ride again, and with my family involved with rodeo, I thought we should try to repair it,” Kessler said. “This injury is really uncommon. We looked at the incidences of tricuspid valve rupture, and even in auto accidents, it’s unusual.
“It’s almost unreproducible. A bull in what force they can generate with their horn going right up against your heart is a lot different than getting hit by a dashboard of a car or an airbag or anything like that. It was a lot of brunt force, like hitting you in the chest with a sledgehammer at the right timing of his heart.”
He’d seen heart injuries in rodeo, but most of those were bruises. The only instance of a valve problem came after a cowboy was stepped on by a bull.
“This is the first case I know of where there was a valve problem by taking a bull horn to the chest,” he said. “If you take all the blunt-force-injury trauma literature available, cardiac valve problems happen in less than 1 percent of the time in those injuries.”
Tyler Kippes might be the new poster child for his particular ailment. It’s not where he wants to be, but it’s where he is.
Now that he’s recovered, though, he’s excited to get back to the business of riding bulls. Though originally not on the contestant list at this year’s Rodeo Austin because of a lack of qualifications – that’s what happens when a cowboy spends nine months away from the game – Kippes entered the rodeo just the same; he was placed on the alternate list.
In mid-March, his name was drawn, and he competed during the March 22 matinee performance at the Luedecke Arena inside the Travis County Expo Center. As long as that groin was in good enough shape, he was excited to return. The last time he was there, he was hauled out on a stretcher.
“I got on some (bulls) at Chase Doughtery’s, and (my groin) felt great,” Kippes said March 19.
Kippes was unable to earn a qualified ride on Beutler & Son Rodeo’s No MansLand, but he’d taken the next step for the Colorado-born cowboy. He wants to live that dream of riding in Las Vegas, and the opportunities for that align with the next rides of his life.
“I’m going to go as hard as it takes to make them yellow bucking chutes,” he said. “I’m excited to be back, too, for sure. I’ve had about a year to sit around and rest, so I’m ready to put the pedal to the metal this year.”
Kessler would love to see that. He was in the audience to witness his patient’s return to glory. After a few follow-up visits with his surgeon, Kippes was released a few months ago to return to normal activities.
“He’s now fixed to the point that I said, ‘Hey, go live your life,’ ” Kessler said. “When he texted me to say he got in to Austin, I told him, ‘Yeah, I’ll be there.’
“We’re so excited for him.”
-PRCA
