This article is a profile article for a magazine on Stephanie Wright who sustained a serious injury after a cheerleading accident.
More Than a Cliché
The cheerleader is a role deeply engraved in the cliché of the American High School experience, one that embodies beauty, popularity, confidence, and athleticism. The media likes to portray cheerleaders as either the cliché blonde bimbo who terrorizes the protagonist or in recent years a group of students who rally together to achieve national success. In reality a cheerleader is a person who values competition and accomplishment just like any other athlete and takes the risks involved because to them it’s worth it. Just like it’s worth it to Stephanie Wright who knew the risks and in one moment of confusion watched her life turn upside down.
Standing at five feet and weighing around a hundred pounds she has seen heights that most would never dream to achieve. As flyer on her varsity co-ed team this girl with an electric smile and determination like no other is thrown fifteen feet in the air just for fun. Like most high school students Stephanie had dreams of going to a four year university on a cheerleading scholarship but her plans were forever changed in the fall of 2007. Sitting in her UMASS Dartmouth college dorm with her hair up in a messy bun and a smile that would invigorate any crowd she begins to tell her story.
“I began cheering in third grade,” Stephanie remembers, “it was originally my mom’s idea, I just wanted to do gymnastics but cheering was a compromise. I feel in love with the competition side of the sport and when I was a freshman at Gloucester High School I tried out for the team. I and another freshman were the only girls to make Varsity. To make Varsity you needed to have a solid back handspring and close to achieving a standing back tuck and I had both.” Stephanie spent the next three years on the Varsity Co-Ed Gloucester High School Cheerleading Team where they worked towards a national cheerleading title.
One of the most controversial aspects of Cheerleading is of course the danger the girls are in especially if they don’t know what they are doing. According to another Gloucester High School cheerleader Jessica Torres cheerleading was a way of life and for Stephanie it was. Jessica recalls “cheerleading was my whole entire life. I was mainly a cheerleader first and foremost and then a student.” For many cheerleaders injury is part of the sport and that’s is why its so important to know what your doing so you don’t end up hurting yourself or a teammate. “The rule on the team” says Jessica “was the fifty push up rule. If any part of the flyer hit the floor while doing stunts the entire base team would have to do fifty push-ups”. Although accidents happen the coaches try to prevent any misfortune by making the girls aware of the dangers. For Stephanie Wright her accident was just that, an accident that she takes total responsibility for.
The beginning of Stephanie’s senior year is when everything changed. “My accident happened in the winter of 2008 during a normal practice. I was goofing off,” Stephanie says “trying to do a cartwheel tuck when I lost my baring’s for a fraction of a second and when I realized that I was going to land on my head I put my arm out to brace my fall. I landed on my arm resulting my elbow to hyperextend and coming down I landed on my elbow. After my fall I did not feel pain until thirty seconds after but I immediately knew something was wrong.” Her coaches and team mates watching the whole time started to approach her until they realized what had happened. Her head coach ran towards her and realized that Stephanie was going to need serious medical attention and called 911. “When the EMTs were taking me out on a stretcher,” says Stephanie with a smile on her face, “I remember telling them I would be fine and that I would see them the next day at practice.” She never thought of the possibility that this injury would stop her from cheering.
Stephanie was taken to Beverly Hospital for x-rays. “The technician I was assigned to take my x-rays,” Stephanie remembers, “was very rough. She took my arm and by adjusting it to take the x-ray turned my injury into a compound fracture.” This meant that her bones broke through the skin making her injury more serious. “When the x-rays came back” Stephanie continued, “I was immediately taken by ambulance to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston where the doctors and nurses who would be operating on me were sent home to sleep for the eight hour surgery the next day.”
Wrights arm was broken in several different places and part of her bone was sticking out of her arm. With the threat of damage to her entire arm the surgeons using screws, metal wire, and metal plates put her arm back together. After surgery Wright was in a lot of pain she recalls that her “arm felt like it was going through a flattener with spikes”. She spent six days in the hospital and received a brace for her injured arm. At this point in her recovery the thought never occurred to her that things could get any worse but she would find out it was just the beginning.
After arriving home from her six day stay in the hospital Stephanie was ready for things to get back to normal. The brace that she received from the hospital to cover her injured arm and incisions ended up giving her a pressure wound that got infected. At this point she was already home and so the doctor continued to prescribe stronger antibiotics over the phone hoping to kill the infection. Two weeks after her first surgery while trying to change the dressing on her arm her coach who was with Stephanie the whole way through her recovery discovered that the infection was worse than anyone thought.
“I remember my Coach taking the bandages off to change them because my mom had a hard time doing it,” Stephanie recalls, “as he started to take off the bandages I thought nothing of it until he immediately stop and looked me right in the eye.” As her Coach was taking off her bandages he came to the area on her elbow that was where her bone had gone through except now there was no skin, there was a hole the size of a quarter where you could clearly see the metal wire holding her arm together. They rushed her to the hospital again where she underwent a thirteen hour surgery to remove the infected skin and tissue and replacing it with skin grafts from her thigh. Before going into surgery she was warned by the doctors that because they did not know if the infection had spread to her bone she may come out of surgery without an arm.
One moment of confusion and total accident lead Stephanie to face the fact that not only was cheering again in jeopardy but coming out of the surgery with only one arm was a possibility. “When the doctors told me that I may come out of the surgery with only one arm I took the news pretty well. I think at that point I did not really understand what they were saying. My mom did though and she freaked out.” In surgery the doctors discovered that the infection had not made it into her bone so there was no need to amputate the arm. She spent the next thirteen days in the hospital recovering from the surgery and the infection. During those thirteen days Stephanie started to develop anxiety and have panic attacks. She recalls “I felt like I was trapped inside my own body. It was the worst feeling I have ever experienced. The only thing that got me through those days was the thought that one day I would cheer again. I would continue to tell myself that it will happen tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a better day.” For a girl that spent her life running and tumbling around a gym the reality of lying in bed day in and day out was too much. “I always knew I would return to cheerleading,” says Stephanie “it’s always been an escape, something I can work hard in and see results. In cheerleading there is always room to grow and improve.”
With a team of doctors including pain management, plastic surgeon, orthopedic surgeon, infectious diseases, and an occupational therapist assigned to her case Stephanie was able to recover full movement in her arm and hand and only seven months after her second surgery went under the knife again to remove all of the metal in her arm. Resulting from her injury, Wrights dream of a cheerleading scholarship was put on hold because she had to stay close to home so doctors could make sure that her arm did not reject the skin graft. She instead attended UMASS Lowell and as soon as she got the doctors clear joined an All Star Cheerleading team called East Elite and soon after with the encouragement of her high school coach tried out and was accepted to the Boston Celtics Cheerleading Team called The Green Team.
It is rare to see a twenty one year old who has gone through as much a Stephanie Wright has and come out on top. “She is truly an inspiration to us all. She has a way of making me believe anything is possible with the right attitude,” says Kimberly Pascucci, who has been Stephanie’s best friend since 1st grade. “She is a strong and motivated women who would not take no for an answer and I believe her ability to continue on even when faced with the reality of defeat is what got her through her injury and back in the air.”
Four years after her accident Stephanie Wright has taken a break from cheerleading to focus on school but her two years of cheering for the Boston Celtics and Cheering competitively with East Elite is something she would not trade for the world. “I was never afraid to get back into the sport” she says “It was a freak accident. I don’t think it would ever happen again. Cheerleading is dangerous but you work your way up to the dangerous stuff. A lot of the danger comes from girls who try to do stuff outside their ability that is when you get in trouble.”
A scar is all that remains from Wrights accident but the thought of that day will never hold her back from what she wants. Cheerleading is a very dangerous sport that requires knowledge, experience, and focus for a safe outcome in any situation. Respect for the sport is the only way to avoid injury.
Standing at five feet and weighing around a hundred pounds she has seen heights that most would never dream to achieve. As flyer on her varsity co-ed team this girl with an electric smile and determination like no other is thrown fifteen feet in the air just for fun. Like most high school students Stephanie had dreams of going to a four year university on a cheerleading scholarship but her plans were forever changed in the fall of 2007. Sitting in her UMASS Dartmouth college dorm with her hair up in a messy bun and a smile that would invigorate any crowd she begins to tell her story.
“I began cheering in third grade,” Stephanie remembers, “it was originally my mom’s idea, I just wanted to do gymnastics but cheering was a compromise. I feel in love with the competition side of the sport and when I was a freshman at Gloucester High School I tried out for the team. I and another freshman were the only girls to make Varsity. To make Varsity you needed to have a solid back handspring and close to achieving a standing back tuck and I had both.” Stephanie spent the next three years on the Varsity Co-Ed Gloucester High School Cheerleading Team where they worked towards a national cheerleading title.
One of the most controversial aspects of Cheerleading is of course the danger the girls are in especially if they don’t know what they are doing. According to another Gloucester High School cheerleader Jessica Torres cheerleading was a way of life and for Stephanie it was. Jessica recalls “cheerleading was my whole entire life. I was mainly a cheerleader first and foremost and then a student.” For many cheerleaders injury is part of the sport and that’s is why its so important to know what your doing so you don’t end up hurting yourself or a teammate. “The rule on the team” says Jessica “was the fifty push up rule. If any part of the flyer hit the floor while doing stunts the entire base team would have to do fifty push-ups”. Although accidents happen the coaches try to prevent any misfortune by making the girls aware of the dangers. For Stephanie Wright her accident was just that, an accident that she takes total responsibility for.
The beginning of Stephanie’s senior year is when everything changed. “My accident happened in the winter of 2008 during a normal practice. I was goofing off,” Stephanie says “trying to do a cartwheel tuck when I lost my baring’s for a fraction of a second and when I realized that I was going to land on my head I put my arm out to brace my fall. I landed on my arm resulting my elbow to hyperextend and coming down I landed on my elbow. After my fall I did not feel pain until thirty seconds after but I immediately knew something was wrong.” Her coaches and team mates watching the whole time started to approach her until they realized what had happened. Her head coach ran towards her and realized that Stephanie was going to need serious medical attention and called 911. “When the EMTs were taking me out on a stretcher,” says Stephanie with a smile on her face, “I remember telling them I would be fine and that I would see them the next day at practice.” She never thought of the possibility that this injury would stop her from cheering.
Stephanie was taken to Beverly Hospital for x-rays. “The technician I was assigned to take my x-rays,” Stephanie remembers, “was very rough. She took my arm and by adjusting it to take the x-ray turned my injury into a compound fracture.” This meant that her bones broke through the skin making her injury more serious. “When the x-rays came back” Stephanie continued, “I was immediately taken by ambulance to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston where the doctors and nurses who would be operating on me were sent home to sleep for the eight hour surgery the next day.”
Wrights arm was broken in several different places and part of her bone was sticking out of her arm. With the threat of damage to her entire arm the surgeons using screws, metal wire, and metal plates put her arm back together. After surgery Wright was in a lot of pain she recalls that her “arm felt like it was going through a flattener with spikes”. She spent six days in the hospital and received a brace for her injured arm. At this point in her recovery the thought never occurred to her that things could get any worse but she would find out it was just the beginning.
After arriving home from her six day stay in the hospital Stephanie was ready for things to get back to normal. The brace that she received from the hospital to cover her injured arm and incisions ended up giving her a pressure wound that got infected. At this point she was already home and so the doctor continued to prescribe stronger antibiotics over the phone hoping to kill the infection. Two weeks after her first surgery while trying to change the dressing on her arm her coach who was with Stephanie the whole way through her recovery discovered that the infection was worse than anyone thought.
“I remember my Coach taking the bandages off to change them because my mom had a hard time doing it,” Stephanie recalls, “as he started to take off the bandages I thought nothing of it until he immediately stop and looked me right in the eye.” As her Coach was taking off her bandages he came to the area on her elbow that was where her bone had gone through except now there was no skin, there was a hole the size of a quarter where you could clearly see the metal wire holding her arm together. They rushed her to the hospital again where she underwent a thirteen hour surgery to remove the infected skin and tissue and replacing it with skin grafts from her thigh. Before going into surgery she was warned by the doctors that because they did not know if the infection had spread to her bone she may come out of surgery without an arm.
One moment of confusion and total accident lead Stephanie to face the fact that not only was cheering again in jeopardy but coming out of the surgery with only one arm was a possibility. “When the doctors told me that I may come out of the surgery with only one arm I took the news pretty well. I think at that point I did not really understand what they were saying. My mom did though and she freaked out.” In surgery the doctors discovered that the infection had not made it into her bone so there was no need to amputate the arm. She spent the next thirteen days in the hospital recovering from the surgery and the infection. During those thirteen days Stephanie started to develop anxiety and have panic attacks. She recalls “I felt like I was trapped inside my own body. It was the worst feeling I have ever experienced. The only thing that got me through those days was the thought that one day I would cheer again. I would continue to tell myself that it will happen tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a better day.” For a girl that spent her life running and tumbling around a gym the reality of lying in bed day in and day out was too much. “I always knew I would return to cheerleading,” says Stephanie “it’s always been an escape, something I can work hard in and see results. In cheerleading there is always room to grow and improve.”
With a team of doctors including pain management, plastic surgeon, orthopedic surgeon, infectious diseases, and an occupational therapist assigned to her case Stephanie was able to recover full movement in her arm and hand and only seven months after her second surgery went under the knife again to remove all of the metal in her arm. Resulting from her injury, Wrights dream of a cheerleading scholarship was put on hold because she had to stay close to home so doctors could make sure that her arm did not reject the skin graft. She instead attended UMASS Lowell and as soon as she got the doctors clear joined an All Star Cheerleading team called East Elite and soon after with the encouragement of her high school coach tried out and was accepted to the Boston Celtics Cheerleading Team called The Green Team.
It is rare to see a twenty one year old who has gone through as much a Stephanie Wright has and come out on top. “She is truly an inspiration to us all. She has a way of making me believe anything is possible with the right attitude,” says Kimberly Pascucci, who has been Stephanie’s best friend since 1st grade. “She is a strong and motivated women who would not take no for an answer and I believe her ability to continue on even when faced with the reality of defeat is what got her through her injury and back in the air.”
Four years after her accident Stephanie Wright has taken a break from cheerleading to focus on school but her two years of cheering for the Boston Celtics and Cheering competitively with East Elite is something she would not trade for the world. “I was never afraid to get back into the sport” she says “It was a freak accident. I don’t think it would ever happen again. Cheerleading is dangerous but you work your way up to the dangerous stuff. A lot of the danger comes from girls who try to do stuff outside their ability that is when you get in trouble.”
A scar is all that remains from Wrights accident but the thought of that day will never hold her back from what she wants. Cheerleading is a very dangerous sport that requires knowledge, experience, and focus for a safe outcome in any situation. Respect for the sport is the only way to avoid injury.