Coach Makes Lifesaving Catch At Last Moment When Teen Gymnast Loses Grip And Falls Off High Bar

Oct 21, 2020 by apost team

Not many teenagers are competing in national level gymnastics that early on in life, but Noah Viera is not your typical gymnast. This 13-year-old was already competing at a national invitational event in Springfield, Massachusetts when a split-second error he made nearly became a costly error. When reaching for the high bar, the teen lost his grip and began to plummet.

However, thanks to his quick-thinking coach Cal Booker, Noah's fall was broken by Cal catching him and possibly even saving his life. Noah's mom had been recording the warm-up and managed to capture the whole event on camera.

You can see the event happen in a video that has since gone viral. It's simply a warmup before the event, but it's scary nonetheless and has made the rounds of viral media on many different networks.

It all begins with nonchalant warmups with his coach and onlookers watching his skills. The high bar itself stood 9 feet off the ground, a scary distance when you consider it's a 13-year-old swinging up there. When he flips around in a circle in the air and then grasps for the bar, the plummet begins.

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Who saved the day? His name is coach Cal Booker. He was the astute spotter for the tee. His job at New England Academy of Gymnastics took a heart-pounding turn for the terrible at that moment, but luckily Cal was able to catch the teen in a split second before he crashed to the floor.

Cal explained the incident to WBZ-TV, as reported by Breitbart: "The high bar is nine feet, and he's swinging around. It adds another two feet. If he lands on his head, that could be catastrophic."

Noah himself made his own contribution to define the event, telling CBS: "When I first jumped, I felt the grip was a little slippery. All I was trying to do was flip over and land on my back—not on my neck. Landing on my back is way better than landing on my neck."

The video that ended up going viral was a video recorded by Noah's own mother. She was potentially recording the moment that her son suffered a catastrophic injury or even worse, but she wasn't expecting a moment like that to occur. By all other accounts, it was just another ordinary warm-up, and everything was going well.

As you might expect, Noah is majorly thankful that his coach was there to save the day. If his coach hadn't been there, Noah said in the same interview with CBS, "I would have been in trouble. You have to trust your coaches." That trust is something that many a gymnast has recognized over the years, but few have witnessed it in action quite like Noah.

The trust between a gymnast and a coach is one that's established in the sport. Coaches play a bigger than average part in a gymnast's success, and even teen gymnasts instantly recognize the major part their coaches play in their development and success in competitions.

You can bet that Noah is going to do more than just trust his coach from here on out. Any future gymnastics career or any life at all might be due to the fact that a great coach was on the job the day he lost his grip on that high bar.

Because it was a warmup only, it might not have made as many viral accounts if Noah's mother hadn't been on the job as a cameraman as well. Thanks to her caring about her son's blossoming gymnastic ventures, everyone is able to watch Noah narrowly escape a bad fall.

Moments like this particular gymnast warmup don't happen very often, but when they do happen, they're well worth watching and then sending out to a friend. If you want to show your friends something incredible today, be sure to reach out to them and send this video! Then let us know your thoughts in the comments.