Auburn University senior gymnast Samantha Cerio suffered some serious injuries at the NCAA Regional Semifinal in Baton Rouge on Friday.
The senior dislocated both of her knees and broke both legs during a floor routine, the Times-Picayune reported.
“It was pretty tough to watch,” Auburn’s coach Jeff Graba said. “She’s a trooper. The last thing she said was, ‘Go help the girls.’ The girls rallied around her. They’re doing this for her right now.”
The gymnast posted about her “final night” as a gymnast.
“After 18 years I am hanging up my grips and leaving the chalk behind,” she wrote. “I couldn’t be prouder of the person that gymnastics has made me to become. It’s taught me hard work, humility, integrity, and dedication, just to name a few. It’s given me challenges and road blocks that I would have never imagined that has tested who I am as a person. It may not have ended the way I had planned, but nothing ever goes as planned.”
Cerio is an aerospace engineering major, according to WDSU. After she graduates, she will begin working for Boeing in Seattle.
