Cheerleaders can’t fly!

Cheerleading used to be all about school spirit. But now that it’s become highly competitive – and even considered a sport in itself – it concerns other things, too. Those things include spectacular stunts in which cheerleaders are hurled high into the air – stunts which can go horribly wrong. Such has been the case across America, with many thousands of persons visiting emergency rooms each year due to cheerleading injuries. And such injuries can lead to disability, paralysis or even death. Sprained ankles or strained backs may be the least of injured cheerleaders’ worries. Others may endure a lifetime of pain after a cheerleading accident.

The Dallas Morning News reports that these injuries occur in part because states haven’t done enough to catch up with the growing extremes of cheerleading activity. The newspaper says that “No monitoring system or organization totals injury reports, slaps fines on violators or tracks participation rates in most states, including Texas. Meanwhile, stunts have become more sophisticated and interest continues to peak.”

The Washington Post followed up that report with its own story, avowing that a “growing body of evidence indicates cheerleading has become one of the riskiest athletic activities for women.”

So have fun and show school spirit. Just be aware that cheerleading is not all that safe when cheerleaders are sent flying up, up and away!

Brain Damage Lawyer | Air Bag Injuries

Drivers who are vulnerable can’t avoid air bag injuries unless they disable steering wheel air bags. Air bag deployment is automatic when a car is hit hard enough in an accident. An air bag explodes out of the steering wheel at 230 mph with 1200 lbs of force. If it strikes a driver in the face and the driver survives - a big “if” – the brain may never recover from the blow.

Who are the most vulnerable drivers? Small women who have to sit closer to the steering wheel than 10 to 12 inches are the most likely candidates for air bag injuries, including brain hemorrhage, severed brain stem, broken neck, facial fractures, blindness and other catastrophic injuries. The original standard for airbag development was the average man - 5 ft. 8 inches tall, weighing 180 lbs.

Is that discrimination against women? If it is, the federal government is leaving them at risk until 2012. That’s when new federal rules governing air bags go into effect, mandating car manufacturers to make air bags “as safe for women and children” as they are for the standard sized man. A word to the wise is necessary here, however. Anyone, man, woman or child, can suffer traumatic injuries if they are too close to an air bag when it is released from the steering wheel, the dashboard, or the side of the car.