Dancer's surgery inspires her to study medicine

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- It's beautiful to watch, but sometimes the art of dance can take a physical toll on the performers, no matter how old they are. After one local high school student was injured during a performance, she started having second thoughts about a career in dance.

Since she was two, Savannah Skinkis loved to perform. But years later, she suddenly lost her balance during a high school dance routine.

"I heard my leg snap. After that I just knew something was wrong," Savannah told us.

She didn't know if she would be able to dance again.

"Labral tears are really common injuries in young athletes and we see them a lot, especially in young female athletes," said Texas Children's orthapedic surgeon, Dr. Scott Rosenfeld.

These tears can sometimes reveal a hip deformation. With Savannah, doctors discovered that her hip socket and femur didn't completely fit into each other.

So one option was to rebuild the hip.

"Which is the surgery where you cut the pelvic bone in four different places, and you roll the socket over to cover the ball a little bit better to give it better support. It would have put her out for the rest of her high school career," Rosenfeld explained.

Savannah had concerns.

"I was going to have my spring show and dance and if I had gone with that option, I wouldn't have been able to dance," said Savannah.

Confident that her labral tear was only injury related, there was an alternative.

"We did a hip arthroscopy surgery which is a minimal invasive surgery, with a couple of small incisions around the hip," Dr. Rosenfeld said.

Savanah was able to perform her final dance in high school and is now a college freshman. After this experience, she has aspirations of becoming an orthopedic surgeon.

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