At first, I couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or cry.
The sound with sharp and loud. It pierced the ambient noise in the circus tent, where I was in the middle of trampoline practice.
My back was turned so I didn’t see what happened as it unfolded.
When I turned around to see what was going on, I saw my friend laying in the net, with one of the coaches kneeling by her side.
She was clearly not laughing.
Everyone in the tent gathered around the net, concerned for her well-being.
When I saw that she could move, I felt myself exhale.
After a few moments, she was able to crawl to the edge of the net on her own. One of the coaches lifted her out of the net, and brought her to the ground, where she was able to stand on her own.
Another deep exhale.
I knew that she would be OK.
Flying trapeze can be a scary sport.
My friend and I do some of our skills and tricks without safety lines, which adds another layer to the risk involved.
This time, though, she had been in safety lines.
The video replay showed that she had been coming down at a head-first angle. Her body angle was such that as she landed in the net, her body did a scorpion:
Her feet came over her head as she landed on her stomach, tweaking something in her back.
It all happened within a fraction of a second. There was little that the person pulling her lines could do to prevent it.
Cynics would say this is a reason not to do flying trapeze. Skeptics would say this is why you can’t trust other people to keep you safe.
If you take that perspective, then you’ll never do anything.
Instead, this proves that even under the safest conditions, there is always risk.
Another friend mentioned that he had pulled his back once while sunbathing. Laying still. Doing nothing.
There’s no activity in life without risk.
It’s likely that you will get hurt at some point.
If you tried to avoid all risk, you’d never do anything.
And that, too, has risk.
The real question is not how to avoid the risk, but how will you get back up after being injured?
A little while later, after resting, my friend walked out of the tent on her own two feet.
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