DALLAS — Makayla Noble has been passionate about being a cheerleader for a long time.

“Cheerleading means a lot to me. It’s something that I live for,” Makayla said. “It was my go-away place, that if I was having a bad day, I would go to cheer and get it all out there.”

Not only did she love the sport, Makayla has competed at the highest levels. She was a part of Cheer Athletics in Plano that won a 2018 NCA National Championship and 2019 Cheer World Championship. 

“The level that I was at, there’s only three teams in the whole world that were able to be at that level and stay at that level,” she said.

While Makayla competed at the national level, she was also a part of the cheerleading team at Prosper High School, just north of Dallas. Early this school year, she was with some friends and practicing a routine that they were going to perform for that week’s homecoming activities.

“It was September 20th,” Makayla recalled. “The football players and the cheerleaders did like a country dance together. We were at a friend’s house practicing the dance and decided we were going to teach the boys how to do this flip. It just went wrong.”

Makayla remembers going into the flip and then landing straight on her throat in the backyard's grass. It was clear immediately that something was really wrong.

“As crazy as it sounds, I knew instantly that I was paralyzed,” Makayla said. “It was a calm sensation I felt throughout my body. I’m not going to try and get up. I’m just going to lay here and I know I have to stay calm.”

Makayla’s mother, Jenn, received a call that her daughter was injured and she went over to the house immediately. 

“I was so scared, and it was so overwhelming,” said Jenn Noble. “Once I got there, she was so calm. You would not even know that she had broken her neck.”

What Makayla had felt as soon as the injury happened turned out to be true. She had suffered a serious spinal cord injury and had no feeling in her lower body.

“As a mom I am sitting there, like telling her, please feel something. Move your toes or say you can feel something,” said Jenn. “It was heartbreaking.”

The doctor told the Noble family that Makayla would not walk again.

“I didn’t want to accept that I was in a wheelchair and going to be in a wheelchair,” Makayla said. “I thought I was an athlete, I was invincible.”

Trying to understand her new reality was tough, but Makayla would not let it stop her from living a productive life.

“This isn’t something that defines me, it’s actually there to help me,” said Makayla. “It’s given me the ability to go wherever I want, do whatever I want.”

Another interesting thing occurred after the injury. Makayla decided to document a lot of her recovery through social media and it created a large following of people interested in her story.

“What we found is being vulnerable and sharing this has helped so many people,” Jenn said. “They have fallen in love with Makayla and this story and people are so invested in that that they’re like, 'You can’t stop now.'”

Her YouTube page has over 90,000 subscribers, and she has almost 200,000 followers on Instagram.

“The platform that I’ve gained through this all is a blessing. It’s something I never expected,” said Makayla.

There are still hard moments for Makayla, but there has also been a lot of progress in the months since the accident. She has regained some feeling in her legs and can even walk with assistance. She recently tried out for the high school cheerleading team and made it.

“I still have expectations and they’re going to be more challenging to achieve,” she said. “But I’m going to go for them and I’m going to do them.”