Catastrophic Female Injuries

Not surprisingly, racing motorcycles has made me exceptionally aware of the possibility of catastrophic injuries. Just two days ago even, my friend Cassie banged herself up pretty good at a race weekend at Reno Fernley, the poor dear, breaking a femur, tib/fib and doing some pretty unpleasant things to the toes of one foot. So it was pretty interesting to me when this article popped up in my Google Desktop Alerts:

Cheerleading Causes Majority of Female Athlete Injuries

"Between 1982 and 2007, there were 103 fatal, disabling or serious injuries recorded among female high school athletes. The vast majority of those (67) occurred in cheerleading, followed by nine in gymnastics and seven in track. During that same period, there were 39 such injuries among female college athletes, including 26 in cheerleading, three in field hockey and two each in lacrosse and gymnastics."

It sounds like they are only taking into account organized team sports, and not sports like horse show jumping, barrel racing, motocross, snowboarding and other extreme competitive endeavors that a lot of women do.