Cheerleader’s injuries are still critical

An Estancia High School cheerleader injured during practice last week remained hospitalized in critical condition Monday. The incident has baffled administrators and stunned the Westside school community.

On Friday afternoon, 11th-grader Taylor Schow was taken to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian after suffering what initially appeared to be a minor injury. She had continued practicing after accidentally colliding with another cheerleader in the gym, but soon reported feeling dizzy and nauseous. Her mother soon drove her to the emergency room, where she lost consciousness.

Assistant principal Lee Gaeta said on Monday that Taylor had not yet awoken and had undergone surgery to remove a blood clot in her brain. He added that even the girl’s doctors had expressed puzzlement over her condition, since she had initially appeared fine on Friday.

“She said she was feeling dizzy, that she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink,” cheerleading advisor Jennifer Broderick said. “At the time, they thought she had dehydration.”

For the moment, Estancia has not put its cheerleading schedule on hold, but Principal Tom Antal said a number of Taylor’s teammates were meeting with school counselors on Monday. Earlier in the day, Antal read a message over the school’s public address system informing students of Taylor’s condition.

In recent months, cheerleading injuries have made the national news more than once. A January study in the journal Pediatrics reported that between 1990 and 2002, more than 200,000 children ages 5 to 18 were treated in emergency rooms for injuries sustained during practice or performance. The number of injuries increased 110% during that time.

The study, conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics, proposed setting uniform safety rules for cheerleading squads and mandating safety training for coaches. Still, Taylor’s accident on Friday hardly fit the usual definition of a sports injury.

According to Gaeta and Broderick, who did not witness the incident, Taylor and another cheerleader were practicing tossing a teammate in the air and catching her on the way down. At one point, the two girls leaned in to make the catch and their heads collided, with Taylor’s chin knocking her teammate on the jaw.

Practice continued uninterrupted for the next half-hour, but then Taylor sat down and complained about dizziness, Broderick said. By the time her mother arrived to pick her up, she had begun vomiting. According to Gaeta, the doctors at Hoag later called the school to ask for a detailed account of the incident, since the injuries did not seem to match the severity of the blow.

“They were under the impression that something else had happened,” Gaeta said. “They were looking for trauma all over her head.”

Antal described Taylor as a bright, hard-working student who had practiced gymnastics for years and excelled in class. This summer, she is scheduled to be one of five Estancia students visiting Australia on an exchange program.

“She’s very popular, one of our top academic students,” Antal said. “It’s truly a tragic situation.”

Kimberly Henderson, the Estancia cheerleading coach who was present at the Friday practice, was not available for comment Monday. Others in the Newport-Mesa cheerleading community, however, said safety was a top priority for coaches, who underwent training camps and took tight precautions while having students perform difficult routines.

Wendy Rice, the head cheerleading coach at Corona del Mar High School, said she used mats on the floor whenever possible and enforced a “four-corner spotting” rule in which girls stood around their teammates during tosses and flips. If the team performed at an event where safety mats were not available, the girls stuck to simple routines.

Still, Rice, who has coached cheerleading for 14 years, admitted that no strategy was foolproof.

“Even if you follow the safety measures to a T, injuries can happen just like in football and every other sport,” she said.