Halle Crozier isn’t able to throw a saddle on her horse, or even climb on without help. She also doesn’t have the strength to ride faster than a lope.
But the cheers for her will be deafening from fans lining the fence at this coming week’s Wyoming High School State Finals Rodeo watching the sophomore compete.
They understand her performance is not about points or paychecks. Every run is a victory for a girl healing her own heart despite a decade of physical impairment.
Like most Wyoming kids raised with ranching or rodeo roots, Halle was on horseback as a toddler.
Even in preschool she had big dreams. She wanted to compete at the National Finals Rodeo and win gold buckles someday.
“I remember my first rodeo, and I was on top of the world in my own little head,” recalled Halle. “Eventually one day, it was all gone.”
Like many Wyoming kids, Halle Crozier has been in the saddle since she could walk, or even before. 
Like many Wyoming kids, Halle Crozier has been in the saddle since she could walk, or even before. 
Halle Crozier and her family spent years trying to figure out what destroyed her nervous system. 
Halle Crozier of Buffalo is inspiring Wyoming’s high school rodeo community as she fights to recover from a vaccine reaction that destroyed her body. “I could choose to not get better, or choose to be positive and work hard to get better,” she said.
Vaccines Destroyed Her Body
Vaccines required by a preschool when Crozier was 5 years old set off an adverse reaction that damaged her nerves.
That was in 2015, when her parents J.R. and Jonee (Phillips) Crozier, along with her older brother Heston, lived in Casper.
Within a month, the little girl was no longer talking or eating.
“She was gray in color,” said Jonee. “She lost half her body weight and just basically stopped living.”
They immediately took her to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver, where doctors were stumped by her condition.
On the assumption Halle had a strange virus or bacterial infection, she was put on antibiotics. When that didn’t work, they tried stronger prescriptions.
She was ultimately on high-powered antibiotics for about six months with no improvement.
Within a few months, Halle was also experiencing muscle loss and weakness.
Next, the family tried a children’s hospital in Salt Lake City, where they were told Halle had muscular dystrophy.
“I said, ‘muscular dystrophy progresses slowly; it doesn’t show up all at once!’” recalled Jonee. “It didn’t make sense.”
They went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where more doctors said she had muscular dystrophy and would likely end up in a wheelchair by the time she was 12.
“I just knew that wasn’t it,” said Jonee. “She didn’t check any particular box, so they’d push us out the door, not knowing how to help us.”
Carter Hutchison of Rozet competes with Halle Crozier as his heeler. "I'm just glad she wanted to rope with me, honestly," he said. 
Carter Hutchison of Rozet competes with Halle Crozier as his heeler. "I'm just glad she wanted to rope with me, honestly," he said.
Halle’s Choice
By 2016, the Croziers were looking outside Western medicine for answers when a Utah newspaper published a story about a bedridden boy with similar symptoms who’d been able to go back to school after treatment by a wholistic doctor in Mexico.
The Croziers booked a trip to Tijuana.
“Doctors there said the vaccines had damaged her nerve endings, which could no longer communicate with her muscles,” Jonee said. “And the antibiotics had totally wrecked her guts.”
They visited every six weeks, ultimately spending about two years detoxifying her little body.
Halle’s health improved tremendously, Jonee said. But nerve damage heals very, very slowly.
Traditional medical doctors had told the family it couldn’t be treated or healed.
“I wasn’t going to settle for that,” said Jonee.
With detoxification, replenishment and a clean diet, Halle had improved enough by about age 8 that her ability to show emotion came back.
That’s when the frustration hit, she said.
“It kind of felt like no way out,” Halle told Cowboy State Daily. “My family helped me a lot with that by giving me a choice — I could choose to not get better, or choose to be positive and work hard to get better.”
‘She Is Not A Victim’
The family always retained hope. Jonee is convinced that healing is 90% mindset, believing it will happen.
“I told her teachers when she was young that she’s not a victim,” said Jonee. “I told them they could modify things to help her, but that she’s not ever a victim.”
When she began high school, with her slow movements and poor balance, Halle often tripped and fell in the hallways.
The highly intelligent teen is now homeschooled and taking college-credit classes as a sophomore.
She stayed on track academically despite trips far and wide to receive intravenous nutrient replenishment and myriad therapies, including brain stimulation and electronic muscle stimulation.
Over the years, Halle has also spent two months at a time annually in Denver for daily hyperbaric oxygen treatments.
And last year, they saw tremendous results from umbilical stem cell treatments.
“She slowly gained back so much of what she lost,” said Jonee. “She had been like a little zombie.
“She didn’t communicate or eat. She’s 100% back in that regard. She’s much stronger than when she was 13. It’s amazing.”
Cowgirling Up
While “any vaccine can cause side effects,” according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, serious injury is rare.
Still, an autoimmune response called Guillain-Barré syndrome has been reported post-vaccine whereby the immune system mistakenly attacks nerve fibers, causing muscle weakness that can lead to paralysis.
The Croziers, when asked about the safety of vaccinations, respond with a ranching analogy.
“Every spring, a rancher can vaccinate 1,000 calves, and may have one calf die and another get very sick and never recover,” said Jonee. “I think it’s the same with humans.”
Instead of wallowing in why it happened or what if it hadn’t, the family (which moved to Buffalo) decided to put their energy into getting Halle better.
And for Halle, throughout all the weekslong cross-country trips to doctors and time-consuming therapies, there were horses.
“She continued to ride,” said Jonee. “But after 10 minutes, she’d be too exhausted to stay in the saddle. That lasted about five years. She was just so weak.”
But now thanks to two “unicorn” horses that take great care of Halle, she competes at high school rodeos.
She enters barrel racing and pole bending on a small palomino mare named Sue, who once stood motionless while Halle dangled from the saddle by one spur until help arrived.
“I’ve hit the dirt a lot,” said Halle, who also heels on a 24-year-old horse named Dually. “But I never let myself quit doing it. I know my limits, so I’m not afraid. I know what I can and can’t do.”
Her mom, however, is very afraid, because the girl has no strength to save herself from a fall.
“My heart is in my throat every time she goes through the gate,” said Jonee. “I want her to slow down and she just goes faster.
“But it’s her passion. It heals Halle every time she does it.”
Inspiring Wyoming’s Rodeo Culture
Despite limitations with lifting her arms and lingering balance and coordination problems, things are looking up for Halle.
The 16-year-old got her driver’s license last year.
She feeds livestock in the winter as long as someone can help her get into the tractor.
And she hardly misses two feet in the branding pen. But rodeo is the light in her life.
“It’s been one of the few things I can do,” said Halle. "I might not be winning, but I can do it and I love it more than anything.
“The rodeos are a big part of my life. The rodeo kids are the best — they treat me so well and want me to do well just as much as I want to do well.”
Last fall, senior timed-event star Carter Hutchison of Rozet saw his heeler sidelined due to a thumb injury.
While Tate Leno healed up, Hutchison asked Halle to be his heeler. This is a boy who won nearly $10,000 team roping as an eighth-grader.
“I was just glad she wanted to rope with me, honestly,” said Hutchison, on track to compete in four events at this year’s NHSFR and then attend University of Wyoming this fall. “She’s going through a lot, and it’s tough to be doing what she’s doing.
“She just loves it so much, and everyone sees that. They see how hard she works at it. I try to slow our steers down so she and Dually can get up there and get a good shot.”
When Leno healed up, it was time for Hutchison to switch back to his real partner.
But the board of more than a dozen WHSRA directors voted to change the rules and allow Hutchison to continue to enter with Halle, too.
“When the board called to tell us what they did, they told us that the impact Halle has at the rodeos is just too important,” said Jonee. “She has changed the whole energy of every rodeo. It’s incredible what it’s done to the culture.”
As much as rodeo inspires Halle to recover and live life on her terms, she inspires the rodeo community.
“People love to watch her, because they know it’s pure determination and grit for her to get through every run,” her mother added. “She’s not the fastest. Usually, she’s the slowest. But people love it.
“She has no idea what she’s doing for those people.”
