worst gymnastics female olympic teambeam accident

The Richards on the ski trail wasn’t any different from the little girl in a gym. Nicole Richards was competing as a Level 9 gymnast, one level below the highest possible in USA Gymnastics. By kindergarten, she was in a private club on a competitive team. Richards started taking tumbling classes.

They jokingly said they were going to put her in gymnastics after that. She was going down a little bunny trail, landed in the splits and just kind of flipped out of the position, landing perfectly. “Little did we know then that wasn’t going to be my future at all.”Īs her parents tell the story, they took Richards snow skiing when she was 2 years old. “We were all so encouraged and excited for what was to be next, being college gymnasts,” says Richards, 37. Just hours before, life had looked like a dream. She needed a trauma unit and a neurosurgeon. She needed to go to IU Health University Hospital. The doctors at Ball Memorial couldn’t help her. She was in a hospital gown on a cot on the roof of the hospital, a helicopter whirring beside her. The next thing she remembers is the cold, a cold like she’d never felt before. As her teammate assured Richards the ambulance was on its way, Richards blacked out again. “My neck is hurting really bad,” Richards said. Richards doesn’t remember it, but her teammate later told her that she woke up for a few seconds in the backseat unable to move. Then, one car slammed into another car and that car into another car and another, vehicles piling up. The roads were icy and snowy, but the car was moving slowly. They had been chatting and laughing and talking about the future.

The three girls were heading from Muncie back to Indianapolis after a trip to Ball State University, where they were planning to make their college gymnastics careers. Her gymnastics teammates from Perry Meridian High looked back and saw Richards lying limp, face down on the seat. Richards’ body was whipped so violently it broke her C6 and C7 vertebrae.

Worst gymnastics female olympic teambeam accident