COLUMBIA, SC (WLTX)- University of South Carolina cheerleader Jessie Sherman has been cleared to cheer again, a year after a car accident almost killed her.
Last summer Sherman, a rising freshman, had just made the cheerleading team, something she had dreamed of for years.
She was driving to practice one August morning when she fell asleep at the wheel of her car. The vehicle flipped upside down onto the highway below.
She broke numerous bones and had to have back surgery, which meant she couldn't cheer with the team that fall.
Jessie has been working hard on her physical recovery, and has just been told she has recovered enough to join the team this season. She says she is looking forward to finally being able to cheer on the Gamecocks at the first football game this fall.
"It's indescribable honestly," Sherman said Wednesday. "There's so many people and everybody's screaming and the music is going and the players are running out on the field, its absolutely indescribable I cant even put into words how excited I am and how great its going to be the second they run out."
She says she hopes her story inspires people not to take their own lives, and dreams, for granted.
"Just don't take what you have for granted," she said, "because for a while, I've been cheering since i was 5 years old. Cheer leading was just always there, it was never gonna go away, until it did. I think i took it for granted, i thought I've been cheering since i was 5, im going to keep cheering until I don't want to anymore. But it was almost taken away from me. So if you can do what you want to do, do it, and put your whole heart into it."
We initially brought you Jessie's story in March, when she was looking for the man who she says saved her life at the scene of the accident. Click here to read the story.
