Friday, March 23, 2007

An update…and a correction

Last week, I covered the Auburn-Alabama gymnastics meet. I wrote a story in the paper and blogged a little about it here.

One of the big storylines of the meet was the serious injury to Auburn’s Carmen Nelms, who went to the hospital after landing awkwardly off vault during warmups. In the paper, I mentioned that she cried and held her ankle in agony; which made sense, because she was surrounded by a knot of fellow gymnasts, all crying up a storm. But I’ve since been assured that Nelms didn’t shed so much as one tear, which is pretty darned impressive.

In fact, it’s even more impressive than I thought: I’ve been told her actual injury was, and I quote, “An open dislocation of the ankle.“ Which means, for those of you who aren’t medical students, that her dislocated ankle came out of her skin.

And yet she didn’t cry. I’m not gonna lie, I’m close to crying just thinking of that happening to me. Ugh.

So the next time someone tries to tell you there’s no one tougher than a football player, remember 5-foot-1 Carmen Nelms and her open dislocation of the freakin’ ankle.

Nice work, Carmen. You win this week’s Chew Nails and Spit Out Tacks Award for toughest athlete around. Congratulations.