Samantha Cerio, the Auburn gymnast whose horrific injuries in a floor routine went viral last week, told “Today” on Monday that at first she thought “something was a little wrong.”
Then reality hit when she looked down. Instead of hyperextending her knees on the landing, as she assumed, her legs had bent unnaturally backward, causing dislocations and multiple torn ligaments in both joints.
“That’s when I saw what had happened, that’s when like the pain kind of started to set in and it got worse,” she said in the clip above.
Medical staff at the NCAA regional semifinal in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, tended to her for about 10 minutes before she was carted off. She underwent surgery last Monday.
Cerio, a 22-year-old senior aerospace engineering major who has a job lined up at Boeing, called the injury a “small setback” and said she planned to walk down the aisle for her wedding to Joseph Wood III in June.
“I’m really stubborn,” she said to “Today.” “I’m doing everything in my power to make it happen.”
One thing she won’t be doing is watching a replay of the accident — and she said she hopes others won’t either. Video of the accident was shared widely on social media and in various media outlets, including HuffPost.
Following up on a recent tweet that “My pain isn’t your entertainment,” the athlete told “Today” that social media users should think twice about sharing certain content. “You don’t think about the people that it could impact, whether it’s that person’s friends or family or that person.”