Serious About Cheerleader Safety
By: Sophie Nielsen-Kolding WMBD/WYZZ TV
Updated: October 23, 2012
EAST PEORIA- One organization is calling for more regulation surrounding cheerleading.
"In any other sport if you miss something, all you drop is the ball, and if you drop me I'm going to be really mad," said Becca Milligan.
Milligan is a flyer, the girls who gets thrown in the air. Her teammate Alli Davis is one of the girls who catches the flyers.
"A flyer has fallen like over my head and sat on my head and I cracked my head on the floor," Davis said.
Cheerleading can be a dangerous sport. The American Academy of Pediatrics said in a report that cheerleading is the cause of 66 percent of all the catastrophic injuries in high school girl athletes in the past 25 years, even though it's overall injury rate is low.
"People don't think it's a sport, but it is trust me," Davis said.
A sport where people are lifting more than 100 pounds over their heads and doing acrobatic tricks. Coach Jennifer Lamb said that's why she needs to make sure their doing it right.
"Every year we watch the online training that talks about the stunts that became illegal or even illegal ones that became legal again, I mean it can flip from year to year so it's very important that we stay on top of those issues so that we can provide the best safety for the girls," Lamb said.
Lamb said they do some stunts on the gym floor without a mat.
"I tell the girls all the time if a stunt has not hit at practice, I'm hot going to let you go out on the floor and take it out because it obviously wasn't safe on a mat, so i"m not going to let it, you know happen on a wooden floor where you could risk getting hurt," Lamb said.
The study says cheerleading should be treated like any other sport in terms of being more heavily regulated. Lamb said that her team is treated just like any other sport when it comes to safety.
"It's not like the football players get any special treatment over the trainer than the girls do. I mean if they have an injury at a game they can go over to the trainer and the trainer will help them just as quick as they could help a football player or a basketball player," she said.
Each cheerleader has to have a physical before they can be on the team. Injuries have to be reported to the nurse and pyramids are never more than two people high.
"In any other sport if you miss something, all you drop is the ball, and if you drop me I'm going to be really mad," said Becca Milligan.
Milligan is a flyer, the girls who gets thrown in the air. Her teammate Alli Davis is one of the girls who catches the flyers.
"A flyer has fallen like over my head and sat on my head and I cracked my head on the floor," Davis said.
Cheerleading can be a dangerous sport. The American Academy of Pediatrics said in a report that cheerleading is the cause of 66 percent of all the catastrophic injuries in high school girl athletes in the past 25 years, even though it's overall injury rate is low.
"People don't think it's a sport, but it is trust me," Davis said.
A sport where people are lifting more than 100 pounds over their heads and doing acrobatic tricks. Coach Jennifer Lamb said that's why she needs to make sure their doing it right.
"Every year we watch the online training that talks about the stunts that became illegal or even illegal ones that became legal again, I mean it can flip from year to year so it's very important that we stay on top of those issues so that we can provide the best safety for the girls," Lamb said.
Lamb said they do some stunts on the gym floor without a mat.
"I tell the girls all the time if a stunt has not hit at practice, I'm hot going to let you go out on the floor and take it out because it obviously wasn't safe on a mat, so i"m not going to let it, you know happen on a wooden floor where you could risk getting hurt," Lamb said.
The study says cheerleading should be treated like any other sport in terms of being more heavily regulated. Lamb said that her team is treated just like any other sport when it comes to safety.
"It's not like the football players get any special treatment over the trainer than the girls do. I mean if they have an injury at a game they can go over to the trainer and the trainer will help them just as quick as they could help a football player or a basketball player," she said.
Each cheerleader has to have a physical before they can be on the team. Injuries have to be reported to the nurse and pyramids are never more than two people high.
