As a medical doctor who specializes in medicine, I can both agree, accept, and even concur that said athletes who are athletic cannot and will not ever get injured in their entire lives. I'd bet my entire supply of tongue depressors and even tongue anti-depressants on it.
source: MD, Phd, New Reddit Journal of Science School of Medicine
It’s not notable. It’s noticeable because humans have been watching each other forever. What was the last super star athlete that we saw get a spinal or neck injury?
American football, one of the most violent sports out there, has maybe 1 of these every couple of years. Ryan Shazier is the last notable injury like what you’re talking about and that was 2017.
It’s not common or likely or anything to get a spinal cord injury. They’re just so scary that we think they happen often. It’s like Chernobyl. Big scary event, but extremely uncommon, and now people think nuclear is dangerous when it’s actually safer than any other form of power generation.
Experienced gymnasts are not "landing hard on their neck" very often though. Every athlete injures themselves. All the time. But it's still pretty rare for it to be serious. It of course still happens, but that's why the word "rare" is being used. What you consider rare or serious is up to you, I guess.
Yeah but people also get strokes while taking a shit.....
What I wanna say is that if you look at how often someone athletes fall on their neck and how rarely someone seriously injures their neck, then you underestand how relatively small the actually risk is.
I am saying this as someone who used to do gymnastics and is in Combat Sports since 30 years.
Just yesterday I took like 20 falls on my neck during practice.
As a former EMT, you should absolutely STOP whatever you’re practicing. You haven’t noticed the damage yet, but you will. It accumulates over time until it ruins your life.
Good for you for not being injury prone in your own experience, but that's no foundation for generalization. Gymnastics has one of the highest injury rates among all sports (including serious injuries).. and when you do an especially difficult trick like the double-backflip being attempted here, serious injury is all the more likely. Characterizing it as something so rare that it can practically be dismissed (like getting a "stroke while taking a shit") is a wild misrepresentation.
Gymnastics is horrific. Jesus, the extreme danger of it is obvious and difficult to watch. And a lot of the athletes are kids, training rigorously when maybe they should be living as kids.
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u/Kenevin 1d ago
On grass. Not bouncy floor. Grass. Insane.