Employee Spotlight: Occupational Therapist and Hand Specialist Lindsey Brewster
Lindsey Brewster intentionally doesn’t mention it while treating her patients.
The 28-year-old, Select Physical Therapy occupational therapist and hand specialist from Lenoir City, Tennessee, usually waits until someone inquires about what she’s doing this weekend.
“I’m going to a rodeo,” she’ll respond, nonchalantly.
That may pique interest. If it doesn’t, Brewster’s mentor and co-worker, Kelly Kittrell-Davis, chimes in. Lindsey isn’t just going to a rodeo.
“She is pretty humble, so she doesn’t always bring it up. She’ll be treating a patient, and I’ll say, ‘Did you know Lindsey barrel races?’” Kelly said. “I’ll then show them a video from Lindsey’s Instagram and they are just amazed that this is what she does for work, and that her side hustle is barrel racing.”
Lindsey’s an engaging, knowledgeable clinician with a passion for the complexities of traumatic hand injuries during the week, and a champion rider atop a thousand-pound quarter horse sprinting around three barrels at breakneck speed on the weekends.
An intriguing combination, part caretaker and part thrill-seeker.
“A lot of my patients think it’s cool,” Lindsey said. “A lot of my older, sweet, lady patients will tell me they are worried about me. They’ll always ask, ‘Are you sure you’re safe?’ They always want to see my videos, and then they’ll say, ‘Oh my goodness.’”
A barrel-racing prodigy – eventually
Lindsey’s mother, Sonja Jones, grew up in Kentucky around horses and barrel racing. She married Roger Jones, a farrier – a horse hoof specialist – and an accomplished barrel racer.
They’ve spent decades raising horses together and traveling the country competing in events. Each is a former Tennessee state champion.
Therefore, it’s natural their only child, Lindsey, would become a barrel-racing prodigy. Her childhood was spent attending rodeos. Her social circles revolved around the sport. And, according to her mom, she “rode and rode and rode” her pony as a child.
Barrel-racing greatness was destined. Right?
“When I outgrew the pony, I was like, ‘I hate this and I’m not doing it,’” Lindsey said. “It was teen defiance.”
Lindsey was ahead of her time, Sonja suggests. It was pre-teen defiance. Lindsey stopped riding horses around 10, and was done. No amount of parental bribing could change her mind.
“We kind of figured it would be that way because we were so involved,” her mother said. “She really wasn’t that interested in the horses.”
Instead, Lindsey fell in love with basketball. A shooting guard, she participated in year-round travel ball, competed through high school and played one year at Division II Lee University before transferring to the University of Tennessee Chattanooga and hanging up her sneakers.
At 20, she needed something besides college classes to occupy her time and endless energy. The horses were still in her parents’ barn, so why not? She informed her dad of her intentions, and, for the first time in a decade, they went riding. A new passion was born – or reborn – that day.
“I was like, ‘Let’s just do it.’ And here we are,” Lindsey said. “It just clicked, and now I love it.”
Natural ability and lots of practice
Two components are necessary for a successful barrel-racing team: An experienced, skilled rider and a fast, well-trained horse.
Lindsey, technically, lacked experience. Most premier riders don’t start at 20. She had watched so much barrel racing, however, she knew exactly what to do. She just had to put it into practice.
The second ingredient already was established. Her father trains the family’s horses, and he produces champions. Lindsey’s 11-year-old quarter horse – whose official American Quarter Horse Association name is Laico Sharp Dressed Man, but is nicknamed Sharpie – has been with the family for about nine years.
Lindsey has ridden Sharpie since he was 5; they spend nearly every day together, exercising, training, bonding.
“Horses have personalities and you learn their quirks and how they prepare for things,” she said. “You spend a lot of time together and you know if the horse is feeling its best or not feeling its best. It’s like a dog, really, just bigger.”
In 2024, they placed first in the Asheville National Barrel Horse Association Super Show in North Carolina, fourth in the Tennessee NBHA state finals and competed in other top events.
A staple of most rodeo competitions, barrel racing consists of a horse and rider navigating turns around three, 55-gallon drums in a cloverleaf pattern. They vie for the quickest time without knocking over any barrels. Although times vary based on individual courses, runs often last 15 to 20 seconds with winners being determined by hundredths or thousandths of a second.
“It’s a ton of work for not many seconds of competing, but it’s a thrill. It’s an individual sport, but you’re a teammate with your animal,” Lindsey said. “That’s such a cool aspect of it.”
Embracing challenges: Barrel racing and hand therapy
Besides working full-time at two Select Physical Therapy centers as a hand specialist, and riding Sharpie on nights and weekends, Lindsey is also the assistant girls’ basketball coach at Lenoir City High School, her alma mater. Her high school sweetheart and now husband, Dylan, is the boys’ head basketball coach at Lenoir City.
Her schedule is intentionally packed.
“The more she has on her, the more she excels. In high school, she had to pick up all the advanced courses, all the AP courses,” her mother, said. “She is just a busy person.”
The intricacies of occupational therapy, and specifically, hand therapy, drew her in.
The human hand consists of 27 bones, 27 joints, 34 muscles and more than 100 ligaments and tendons. Figuring out what is wrong with a patient’s hand, wrist or elbow, and how to provide relief and a return to normal activities, can be bewildering.
“I like that it is complicated,” she said. “It’s like a puzzle, finding out why people are having the problems they are having.”
It wasn’t until she met Kelly four years ago that Lindsey considered hand therapy as an option. Adding another Select Physical Therapy hand therapist in east Tennessee was essential because the caseload had mushroomed to the point that Kelly, an occupational therapist for 30 years and a certified hand therapist for more than 20, desperately needed assistance. Initially, she wasn’t sure Lindsey, who was fresh out of school, would be the right hire because she didn’t have any real-world, hand therapy experience.
“I think we figured out after about four weeks that our personalities jibed really well. She was a really fast learner, and she started to develop a passion, the same passion I had for hands,” Kelly said. “Lindsey is a wonderful therapist. Her patients really love her and her therapy skills have really come along as she has grown.”
Avoiding injury and barreling along
As a barrel racer, Lindsey understands she’s putting her body at risk. As an occupational therapist, she knows how grueling it can be to recover from injury. As a hand specialist, she is quite aware of what can happen to someone’s hand, wrist and elbow after falling from a horse.
Her worlds collide each time she climbs aboard Sharpie. Yet she said she never thinks about potential injuries when she rides, that she is, “of the mindset you could hurt yourself walking down the street.” She takes one major safety precaution in the arena, however.
Traditionally, barrel racers don cowboy hats during races, but Lindsey is one of the few competitors who wears a helmet. Still, she’s had her share of bumps along the way.
During one competition in Indianapolis, she jammed her finger so badly that “it was hanging sideways,” her mother said.
Sonja was driving her daughter to the emergency room, when Lindsey decided she wasn’t comfortable having someone she didn’t know working on her hand. So she jerked the finger back into place, kept competing that weekend and had Kelly build her a splint when she returned home.
Lindsey laughs now at the memory. She admits she still has that basketball mindset. That competitive spirit, that will to win at any physical cost.
This wasn’t a life she wanted to pursue: winning barrel races on the weekends like her parents. Once that pre-teen and teen defiance passed, though, everything fell into place.
“I would have bet everything I had that she would never have barrel raced,” her mother said. “And I would have lost.”
Contact us today to request an appointment for occupational therapy or hand therapy services. Find a location near you and be connected with a member of our expert clinical team – talented and compassionate, just like Lindsey!