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GLENWOOD, Iowa (AP) — Gina Giaffoglione's lifelong love of tumbling could have ended with the car crash six years ago that left her paralyzed from the waist down, but the 27-year-old Glenwood native has kept that love alive by teaching tumbling classes to children in Iowa and Nebraska.
"She was tumbling before she was walking," said her father, Gary Giaffoglione. "Drove her mother crazy. She was a very, very strong tumbler."
Giaffoglione was a student at Wayne State University in Wayne, Neb., when a speeding car she was in lost control and rolled on March 22, 2008. Giaffoglione was thrown from the car and left paralyzed from the waist down.
Giaffoglione's first question to emergency workers at the crash scene was, "Am I ever going to tumble again?"
She wasted no time mourning the loss. She returned to Wayne State, completed her human services degree and continued to run her own tumbling studio — Tumbling with Gina — in Laurel, Neb., that she opened in 2007.
Last year, her father retired, and she took over as director of Gary's Tumbling in Glenwood. She plans to close her Nebraska studio in May to concentrate on instructing the 130 students she has in Glenwood.
When she's not teaching, she's speaking at schools about the dangers of impaired driving and the importance of seat belts. Although she was not driving when the crash occurred, she did get into a car with someone who had been drinking. She was a third passenger in a two-seater car, so she was not wearing a seat belt when the car rolled.
"I think everything happens for a reason," she said. "Maybe this was it, so I can talk to these kids and keep them from making bad decisions."
She's still planning new adventures. She's getting married in September, and she wants to go skydiving.
Last year, after mentioning in a presentation at Millard North High School in Omaha, Neb., that she would like to skydive, students there collected over $300 to cover the fee for it.
She's going to wait a while before getting in the plane.
"The chances of breaking my legs are pretty high, so we'll wait until after the wedding," she said.
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Information from: The Daily Nonpareil, http://www.nonpareilonline.com
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