Increasingly acrobatic and risky cheerleading moves and freshman initiation rituals have apparently left a Thai university student fighting for her life in a coma.
Supatra Maha-udom, an aspiring cheerleader at Burapha University in Chon Buri, near Pattaya, was dropped head first last weekend as she attempted a high-flying move, and police are investigating claims the first-year student was pressured into attempting it by senior students as part of an initiation ritual.
Supatra was declared brain-dead by doctors on Monday. But after her arms and legs responded to stimulation, surgeon Kanisorn Anunsakul at Chon Buri Hospital operated to relieve pressure from bruising on her brain on Wednesday, saying there was still faint hope.
'There's a glimmer of hope, but there's no guarantee her condition will improve,' he said. Supatra is a student at the university's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
A teacher familiar with the cheerleading scene in Bangkok told the Sunday Morning Post: 'This is an accident that's been waiting to happen. The kids see films like Bring It On and videos of American routines, where you have kids with real gymnastic training being tossed up in the air by very fit and well-muscled young men.
'But here, the boys doing the throwing and catching are often quite skinny, and the girls don't always know what they're doing either. It was only a matter of time until someone got seriously hurt.'