Stab High Ladybird Falls From 20 Feet In Near-Tragic Skating Accident

Brace yourself. 

When you first watch the video of Sky Brown’s vert-ramp crash, you think, there’s no way in hell an 11-year-old child can survive that.

Dropping from 20 feet onto concrete would leave an average human disabled for life. Luckily for Sky Brown, she is in no way average. Nor, potentially, human. 

The multi-sport prodigy confirmed her surfing prowess by tying Sierra Kerr (who is three years her senior) in last year’s Stab High Ladybirds event. Sierra took out the win via tiebreaker, but this did little to break a then-10-year-old Sky’s spirit. 

Unbeknownst to some at Stab High, Sky is even more renowned for her abilities on a ramp than in the surf. In fact, despite being just 11 years old, Sky was provisionally qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Were she to compete in the Games this summer, she would have been the youngest Olympian in any sport since 1896. She’s also the first female to land a frontside 540 on a skateboard, and to top it all off, Sky is a Dancing with the Stars winner. 

Again, the girl is eleven. 

But then last week, in a single, terrifying moment, all of these achievements were put in context as Sky plummeted from two stories, risking not just limb, but life. 

“I held her in my arms and she bled helplessly moaning in and out of consciousness waiting for the helicopter to take her to the hospital,” Brown’s father, Stewart, wrote on Instagram.

“We spent the night sick and terrified not knowing if Sky was going to make it through the night, as the ICU team tried to get her conscious and kept her alive,” he continued.

What Stewart describes would be intolerable fear and torment for any parent. But Sky doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

“This will not stop me,” she said. “I am going for gold in Tokyo 2021.”