NORFOLK, Va. — A 16-year-old gymnast from Chesapeake is in the hospital after he fractured his neck and lost feeling in his legs in a fall during open gym a week ago.
That feeling has come back for Cody Bennett, a rising junior at Grassfield High School, and now hospital staff from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital are helping him learn to walk again.
He said last week he was warming up on the bars during open gym when he slipped and fractured two vertebrae in his neck. He said, though, that he’s never given up hope of getting back on the mat.
“It was still mostly fear — what if everything I ever worked for was just over like that, but we’ll be back,” Bennett said.
He started gymnastics at a young age and has continued to compete throughout his life. He said he has formed a lot of friendships through the sport, many of whom have been in to visit him in the hospital.
“Feels like a second home, second family, I’m at the gym the same amount that I’m at home,” Bennett said.
He said he slipped off the high bar a little early and landed on his head during an open gym practice with no coaches around.
He fractured his C6 and C7 vertebrae in his neck, and at the time, he couldn’t feel his legs.
“I just got really scared, everything went numb, couldn’t move anything,” Bennett said. “It was the worst pain of my life after a couple minutes.”
One week later, he has feeling back in the lower half of his body, and he’s in physical therapy, working to build strength in his arms and legs.
His mom, Megan Buchholz said that, as a parent of an athlete, you know this is always a possibility, but you never think it will happen to your child. She said seeing the progress he has made in such a short amount of time gives her hope.
“I cant say that I’ve ever been more proud to be his mom,” Buchholz said. “To watch him push himself, he’s always pushed himself in gymnastics wanting to do the next big thing, but I’ve never seen anyone with so much mental fortitude to just push and push and push.”
She said it was tough seeing her son in the hospital that night.
“When they were doing his exam and watching that he didn’t have any sensation or movement below his waist, it was devastating,” Buchholz said.
Bennett is a Level 10 gymnast, the highest level before college competition, and specializes in vault and floor. He said he doesn’t want this to scare anyone from competing in the sport.
“It’s not like another sport,” he said. “You can choose what you want to do there’s so many skills, you can make your own routines,” said Cody. “It’s not like football where you run plays, you can do whatever you want, express yourself.”
Cody has been watching the Team USA men’s gymnastics athletes compete from his hospital bed.
“I mean, I’m getting close to the level they’re at, and some of the moves they do, I can do too,” he said.
He said it also gives him hope knowing Brody Malone had a similar injury last year.
“This time last year, he couldn’t walk and he kind of had the same mistake I had,” Bennett said. “He slipped off high bar on the dismount and he’s at the Olympics now.”
So after heading to a spinal cord injury rehab facility in Richmond, he’s hoping to be back at his second home soon, and is already setting his sights on the the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
Bennett’s family and coaches started a GoFundMe Page to help pay for mounting medical expenses. If you’d like to help, click here.