The last six months of 11-year-old gymnast Claire Schaffer’s life led to a single moment March 24: Walking onto the mat at the Nebraska Sports Foundation Complex in Lincoln to start her floor routine.
Most would call what Claire went through over the last six months a miracle.
She was kicked by a horse and sent flying into her family’s porch. Her pelvis was shattered. Her foot was broken. No one was sure at the time whether she would walk again, let alone normally.
But there Claire was — just six months later — on the Nebraska Sports Foundation Complex floor: fully healed and well on her way to winning the floor, beam, vault and all-around titles, and finishing runner-up in bars.
No one was sure Claire would recover in time for the end of the gymnastics season. Except for Claire, that is.
People are also reading…
She never lost hope. She never stopped fighting to get back to where she knew she needed to be. She leaned in on faith, shored up her mental fortitude and overcame perhaps the biggest adversity she has faced in her life.
“Claire through this has shown why we do the mental gymnastics that we do,” said Desirae Kukert, Claire’s coach at Legacy Dance and Gymnastics. “There’s always something we can work on mentally so we can get back to where we physically do gymnastics.”
And she did it in her own style.
Some might call it crazy that Claire recovered so fast. But for Claire’s family and friends, calling it a miracle sounds just about right.
“It felt like it,” Claire’s mom, Sarah, said. “It still feels surreal, to be honest.”
'It’s completely shattered'
When she couldn’t move, the memories started rushing back to her. She realized it was anything but a dream.
On Sept. 23, 2023, Claire was watching a movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” when she heard her father, Cole, doing Native American war cries outside while riding on a young horse.
Claire went outside to watch him, and she stepped off the porch to go and pet the horse. That’s when the horse turned around and kicked Claire with both legs.
Claire went flying back onto the porch. She hit her head, and it knocked her out.
Cole felt terrible because he was on the horse when it kicked Claire. He had wanted to show Claire a pretty purple flower he had found.
“She had a meet (coming up) in Florida, and she was so excited,” Sarah said. “The flower was purple, which is their team colors, and her favorite color was purple.”
Claire didn’t want to go to the emergency room. Neither did Cole. But Claire couldn’t move, and Sarah was adamant Claire should go to the hospital.
So they did. Once there, the extent of Claire’s injuries was made clear. Her pelvis was shattered. Her foot was broken. She had some tissue tear in her elbow, and she had a concussion.
The focus was on her pelvis — a severe injury with multiple breaks that can be life-threatening. X-rays showed the damage, and Claire said getting the X-rays hurt more than breaking her hip did.
The hospital kept Claire overnight; then the Schaffers drove to Omaha to meet with Dr. Layne Jenson at Boys Town Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine.
“He’s the one who repeated all the imaging, and he was like, ‘It’s like gravel,’” Sarah said. “He said, ‘It’s completely shattered. I can’t pin it. I can’t do anything.’”
Jenson never treated Claire like a kid while he worked with her. Claire was involved in the conversation after they got the imaging back, and Jenson never excluded her from any part of the process.
“We were best friends,” Claire said.
Jenson, though, couldn’t do much to immediately help. They couldn’t put a cast on Claire’s foot because it would displace her hip. The bone would have to heal on its own. “Surgery was not an option because of the amount of bone fragments in the pelvic shatter,” Sarah wrote in a text message.
Claire was in crutches — since she denied a wheelchair — to keep pressure off her foot in the meantime and help her move around without putting too much strain on her hip. She also wore a small boot for a bit.
There were concerns Claire wouldn’t walk normally again, let alone get back to doing gymnastics.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” Sarah said.
Claire passed the time by watching “Fuller House” on Netflix and trying to catch up on her schoolwork.
One night while at the hospital, she wanted to prove to everyone she didn’t have a concussion, so she grabbed her computer and tried to take a math test.
Her parents let her take the test but then took the computer away. It was hard for her to concentrate. She definitely had a concussion.
Through it all, though, Claire never let herself get sad or dejected. She was focused on getting better so she could return to what she loves: gymnastics.
“There’s no point in being all sad and mopey because it’s not going to do anything,” Claire said. “So, I’m going to be as positive as I can. I was so positive, and every day when I woke up and before I went to bed, I envisioned myself doing my skills in gymnastics. If I can’t physically do it, I might as well do it mentally. I think it really helped.”
Falling in love with gymnastics
At age 8, Claire had no interest in starting gymnastics.
She is a ranch kid. She rides horses. She plays and takes care of her baby goats. She does junior rodeo events like goat tying. She also did her chores around the ranch, like helping turn out the horses for the winter and helping with calving.
Helping out around the ranch doesn’t take up all her free time, though.
She loves singing. She loves drawing. She loves going snowboarding in Colorado. She used to play soccer and is considering playing again next year.
She even loves playing football at recess with her friends.
“Even though we’re sometimes last pick because we’re girls,” Claire added.
Every now and then, Sarah would find Claire doing things like hanging upside down off her horse. So she pitched the idea of gymnastics to her daughter.
“So, I’m like ‘You’re not really on your feet that much,’” Sarah said. “‘You’re usually trick riding. Why don’t you try gymnastics?’”
“I was like ‘No,’” Claire immediately chimed in.
“No, not interested,” Sarah added.
So how did Claire finally try gymnastics for the first time?
“I literally dropped her off and left her,” Sarah said.
Claire went to Legacy Dance and Gymnastics in North Platte, Nebraska, with coaches Desirae Kukert and Sarah Antonmarchi. Legacy offers recreational classes to introduce new gymnasts to the sport. It’s an hourlong beginners class once a week.
After a bunch of classes, the girls then get evaluated and join one of a few teams.
Claire attended her first recreational class. She was admittingly scared of what to expect. She walked out an hour later with a different tune.
“I was like, ‘That’s the best day ever,’” Claire said.
“You know what you said? ‘Why didn’t we do this earlier?’” Sarah said. “And then I hit my head on the wall a few times.”
It didn’t take long for Claire’s energetic personality to make an impression on her coaches too. Three practices into the recreational sessions, Claire wanted to show Kukert a trick.
She slid down an inclined mat on her stomach. Like a penguin sliding on some ice.
“She showed the whole team, and ever since, she’s been known as ‘Penguin,’” Kukert said.
Claire was also convinced Kukert didn’t actually know Claire’s name for the first few practices. She only knew the name “Penguin.”
“Penguin” kept getting better and better, but she was still at a beginner level. Then she got hurt in September. The rest of her class moved up to the next level in November while Claire was recovering.
“She adores gymnastics, and for that to be ripped away for something that doesn’t involve gymnastics, that’s heart-wrenching,” Kukert said.
Then, on Jan. 2, Claire just showed up to practice without letting any of the coaches know beforehand, and she was ready for a full practice.
Claire Schaffer, just three and a half months after an injury that left her parents and doctors wondering if she’d ever walk normally again, was ready to pick up where she left off.
Faster than expected recovery
Jan. 2 might be a day Claire will never forget. She called it “the best day of her life.”
It was the day she was cleared to fully participate in gymnastics again. She recovered fully from the shattered pelvis, a broken foot, a concussion and some torn tissue in 101 days.
The Schaffers drove to Boys Town in Omaha on that day without the slightest idea how the visit with the orthopedist would go.
Well, Claire knew.
“There’s no reason for him not to clear me,” she said.
Claire had been walking. She tried it in her bedroom about three weeks after the injury, and she waddled along the ground, almost living up to her “Penguin” nickname.
She had slowly convinced Jenson at Boys Town Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine to let her do more and more after each visit.
A month after her injury, she convinced Jenson to let her show him that she could walk, something she shouldn’t have been able to do that soon.
Two and a half months after the injury, she convinced Jenson to allow her to run. Claire didn’t just run, though. She sprinted.
This changed everything. She was recovering faster than anyone expected. Claire knew it, but she also needed to convince everyone else that she was fine too.
“I got so many messages (from Claire’s teachers),” Sarah said. “‘Hey, Claire’s really wanting to jump. Is that OK?’”
Claire started physical therapy with Meredith White at Sandhills Physical Therapy and Sports Rehab due to her accelerated recovery. That lasted about four to five weeks. White pushed her, especially because she knew what Claire wanted.
“She knew I wanted to go back, so she’s like ‘You’re going back,’” Claire said.
After 101 days of back-and-forth visits and physical therapy, Claire finally got the news she had waited for since the accident.
She was cleared. She could do gymnastics again.
Of course, her parents had no idea this news was coming, but Claire did. On New Year’s Day, the day before she would be cleared, Claire was in good spirits.
“She was like, ‘It’s a new year,’” Sarah said. “‘Good things are coming.’ And Cole and I were like, ‘Hahahaha.’”
There was still one last thing on Claire’s mind after she got the news.
“They had practice that day,” Sarah said. “She was like, ‘Can we make it back to practice?’ And I was like, ‘Sure, bud.’”
So that’s what Claire did. The Schaffers raced back to North Platte so Claire could make it to practice on time. She didn’t let anyone know she was coming until she arrived, put away her stuff and walked out onto the mat.
“I didn’t want to let her do much of anything,” Kukert said. “I was so scared to have her hurt herself.”
That wasn’t going to stop Claire from giving it her all. She wanted to do all the advanced techniques right away, and Kukert needed to make sure Sarah, Cole and her doctors were OK with Claire doing that immediately.
“She saw (the injury and recovery) as another obstacle to get through,” Kukert said. “It was just easy for her to get back into what she loves.”
Winning a state title
Claire couldn’t help but be a little nervous as she walked onto the mat for the first routine of the day at the state meet.
She was up against nearly 20 teams full of gymnasts competing, and she was the sole competitor from Legacy competing in her division.
“We had floor first, and floor is my favorite,” Claire said. “And I got on there, and I was like, ‘OK, I’m good. I’m not nervous anymore.’”
This isn’t Claire’s first time competing at state. She won the all-around title last season, too. But any nerves she had this year evaporated as soon as her music hit. She performed her floor routine, which was choreographed by her coaches before she was even cleared to come back to gymnastics, and she came out on top.
“I get to be myself,” Claire said. “I can go all out. I get to tumble, and I get to dance too. It’s all the things I love combined.”
She definitely wasn’t nervous anymore. That floor victory gave Claire momentum going into the other events. She won in vault and beam as well, and she came in second in the bars.
While Claire competed alone, her support system was there to cheer her on the whole way. Friends, family and teammates drove to Lincoln to watch Claire compete. Her teammates who weren’t competing even got to walk with her across the mat when the gyms were introduced.
“It felt good because you can hear them cheering for me,” Claire said. “When it’s silent and you’re competing, it’s not very fun.”
It’s the same friends, family and teammates that supported Claire throughout her recovery process.
Starting with her family, Sarah and Cole did everything they could to make sure Claire was taken care of and could recover properly. They drove back-and-forth to Boys Town multiple times to make sure Claire was seeing the best orthopedic doctor they could find.
Claire’s brother, Quinton, even helped cover Claire’s usual chores around the ranch for a bit.
Claire’s friends would walk with her while she was on crutches, and most even offered to sit with her at PE until they were told they needed to participate in the class. Then they walked her to the first-grade class Claire volunteered at while she was recovering.
Claire didn’t tell her friends when she could run again and return to PE. Instead, when her friends walked her to that first-grade class, she instead surprised them by running straight ahead to PE.
She was even back to playing tackle football, though she needed a doctor’s note to convince the PE teacher that she was allowed to do.
“Her support network was unbelievable,” Sarah said. “Our community was so helpful. Your friends, your team, your family, your coaches, your school. People came out of the woodwork and supported (her). She’s fiercely independent, and she did a great job of accepting help.”
Claire’s story is one that could be called a miracle. Instead, Claire turned it into a story that shows the power of faith and how mental toughness could help anyone overcome adversity.
And in Claire’s case, that mental toughness helped her come back stronger than ever and become a champion.
“Physical power and strength aren’t always as strong as mental power and strength,” Claire said.