By Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
TEWKSBURY, Mass. — A 911 call from East Elite Cheer Gym this week may have brought back grim memories for some emergency responders, but this incident had a far less tragic ending.
The Shawsheen Street facility is where Ashley Burns, 14, suffered a fatal injury while receiving instruction with the Medford High School cheerleading team in August 2005. The 90-pound girl died of a ruptured spleen after being caught stomach-first during a routine cheerleading stunt.
Her mother, Ruth Burns, sued the gym two months ago, hoping that her lawsuit will lead to national standards for cheerleading safety.
Emergency responders were again called to the gym Tuesday about 5 p.m., after a cheerleader “fell on her back,” according to police logs.
Firefighter Joe Kearns, a 13-year veteran of the Tewksbury Fire Department who responded to the scene, said the Burns case does “go through the back of your mind.”
“But the way the call came in was different. It didn’t sound as severe,” he said. “And once we got out there, we saw that she was sitting up and had people tending to her.”
The 13-year-old girl landed on part of her neck while doing a back flip, but had not lost consciousness, Fire Chief Richard Mackey said yesterday.
Firefighters decided to have her taken to Lowell General Hospital.
“It was all just precautionary stuff,” Mackey said. “They just wanted to make sure that everything was OK.”
The girl’s condition was not immediately available yesterday.
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