PHILLIPS: You can take the cheerleader out of the cheer, but you can't take the cheer out of the cheerleader. Kristi Yamaoka is the Southern Illinois University cheerleader who tumbled from a human pyramid, landed on her head, but continued to cheer while being wheeled out of the arena on the stretcher. Kristi talks about her fall just days after the accident.</s>KRISTI YAMAOKA, INJURED CHEERLEADER: I'm supposed to flip forward off of the stunt and I didn't make it quite all the way up in order to get my balance. And so I knew I was probably not going to be able to roll forward. So that's basically when I knew that it wasn't going to work out as well as I'd planned. I don't know how many times I've hit that stunt perfectly and no one really cares until you hit the ground. So I just want everyone to know that usually our stunts hit and you know, although there is some danger to cheerleading, that's a risk that cheerleaders are willing to take because we love doing it. The dangers of cheerleading are obvious and we just need to make sure that there's enough spots all over to catch girls and make sure that everything's going to be as safe as possible. I've had phone calls like you wouldn't even believe from friends that I haven't talked to in years. And they've been calling all my family members and even a lot of my friends to check on me, make sure I'm OK and just basically give me their support. And it's been absolutely amazing. I was aware that I was doing it, but every time we hear that fight song and they play it over and over at all the games, our coach has us dance because it helps keep the crowd going and gets everyone motivated to support SIU. So as soon as I heard it, I figured the rest of my squad was probably doing the fight song. And I'm still part of the squad so I had to do my thing. I'm hoping that I'll be out of this neck brace in time to try out again and hopefully, you know, make the squad and be able to cheer again for the Salukis next year.
Injured Cheerleader Still Has Spirit