(CNN) — Skateboard prodigy Sky Brown is recovering a horrific fall during training in Southern California.
The 11-year-old posted a video Monday on her Instagram and YouTube channel titled “My Worst Fall Yet.” The one-minute video has a clip of the fall, which happened Thursday, and a message she recorded from her hospital bed.
In the video, Brown is making passes on a half-pipe in an indoor facility when, near the lip, her board veers off the edge of the ramp about 20 feet above the concrete floor. The person making the video drops the camera, so the clip does not capture Brown’s hard landing next to the pipe.
She reportedly suffered a skull fracture and broken bones in her left wrist and hand. She was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.
A helicopter airlifted her to the hospital.
The second part of the video is Brown speaking to the camera from her hospital bed, her right eye swollen and bruised.
“I don’t usually post my falls or talk about them, because I want people to see the fun in what I do, but this was my worst fall, and I just want everyone to know that I’m OK,” Brown says. “I’m just going to get back up and push even harder. I know there’s a lot going on in the world right now and I want everyone to know that whatever we do we’ve got to do it with love and happiness.”
Brown, a member of the British national skateboard team, is a top contender for a berth to the Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed until 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Brown’s father, Stewart, told the BBC that she was “lucky to be alive” after her fall.
“Sky landed head-first off a ramp on her hand,” he said. “When she first came to hospital, everyone was fearful for her life. … Sky had the gnarliest fall she’s ever had.”
Though Brown competes for Britain, she divides her time between Japan and Southern California. Her father is British, her mother is Japanese, and she was born in Miyazaki, Japan.
Her California home is in Huntington Beach, but Thursday’s accident apparently occurred in Imperial County.
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