Auburn gymnast Samantha Cerio refuses to be defined by the gruesome injury she suffered at the NCAA Regional Semifinals in April.
Cerio dislocated both knees, broke one leg and tore multiple ligaments when she landed awkwardly out of a handspring, double front during a floor pass — a tumbling combination that requires a blind landing. The athlete spoke out about her injury not being the Internet’s entertainment after the footage was widely shared across social media platforms.
Via ESPNW:
“You go from this very high moment of seeing college gymnasts go viral for floor routines and getting 10s everywhere to a very stark difference when someone gets injured, and it’s not something people are used to seeing in the sport.”
Cerio, an aerospace engineering major, proved her ability to bounce back when she walked at her graduation on crutches in May and then walked down the aisle without any assistance other than her father on her arm at her wedding in June.
Sports doctors confirmed the rarity of the injury and type of recovery Cerio made in an ESPNW profile. Dr. Benton Emblom, a colleague of renowned sports doctor James Andrews, performed surgery to repair Cerio’s knees and explained the rarity of what happened to her. According to the doctor, a mere one degree under rotation caused her landing to send energy through the backs of her knees instead of upward through her body as normal. “Just to put things in perspective, Dr. Andrews has been taking care of athletes for 45 years, and he said he’d never seen a bilateral knee dislocation in an athlete,” Emblom said. So it’s kind of like a 100-year storm. I’ll probably never see it again.”
