Here's the article online:
Most Dangerous 'Sport' of All May Be Cheerleading
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/cheerleading-dangerous-sport-young-girls/story?id=9473938
[QUOTE]
Two years ago, Patty Phommanyvong was a healthy 17-year-old. Now she will never walk or talk again. She was injured while cheerleading -- an athletic activity some say is now among
[COLOR=#810081]the most dangerous for young girls[/COLOR].
Phommanyvong had never done any gymnastics before she started
cheering. After just two months, her parents say, Patty's
cheering partners were throwing her as high as 16 feet in the air.
Then she suffered an accident that stopped her breathing. Her parents claim that her school's defibrillator failed and the 45 minutes she went without oxygen left her with a brain injury that caused permanent paralysis. Today, Phommanyvong can only communicate by blinking.
...
The degree of difficulty of cheer stunts has exploded. So too has the number of accidents.
Cheerleading emergency room visits have increased almost sixfold over the past three decades. There were nearly 30,000 in 2008, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The numbers are all the more disturbing because some states don't even recognize cheerleading as a sport. That means there are no uniform safety measures and training methods.
...
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]
"It's a national epidemic," said Kimberly Archie, who started the National Cheer Safety Foundation to campaign for more safety practices in cheerleading. "I think we should be extremely concerned as a nation. ... [It's] a self-regulated industry that hasn't done a good job. If I was going to give them a report card, they'd get an F in safety."
[/QUOTE]
Related:
[COLOR=#003366]College Games: Are the Injuries Worth It?[/COLOR]
