Blog > Thoughts > Sean's Thoughts > I shouldabeen a cheerleader
I shouldabeen a cheerleader
Written by Sean on Monday, April 2, 2007
There is a lot of noise in the media recently about the fact that cheerleading is a very dangerous sport! It’s not just jumping up and down and waving pompoms on the sideline anymore. A guy on the radio this morning said that cheerleading accounts for more spinal/back/head injuries than all other sports combined!
Precariously perched.
In particular, an article in the New York Times paints a bleak picture. The article says:
Of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982 to 2005 — head and spinal trauma that occasionally led to death — more than half resulted from cheerleading, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. All sports combined did not surpass cheerleading.
Ok, the stats are more for girls than boys (and I wasn’t a girl last time I checked!). Still, numbers are staggering.
If you’re a transabled young woman though, don’t rush out and take up cheerleading. You’re more likely to become a quad, or even to die, than to end up a para. Or you’d end up with a broken neck, wearing a HALO for months, but not paralysed.
Who would have thunk?
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1 On 3 April, 2007, John said:
This is so true. I can remember the occasional newspaper article over the years telling the ‘inspirational’ story of a cheerleader, now paralyzed from the waist down, coming back to rejoin the squad. Rarely have I seen mention that tossing young bodies up into the air is inherently dangerous.
Gymnastics, as a sport, is also prone to head and spinal injuries.