Claire Bauman, ’09, was in an intermediate ballet class at Vassar College on Jan. 25. On the way into some difficult jetés (big jumps), she tore more than 70 percent of her Achilles tendon.

“Somehow on that preparation, my left leg didn’t work—or something stopped—and my foot kind of stuttered across the floor. And that did the trick,” Bauman said.

“It popped. Some people thought that a water bottle had been kicked to the floor,” Bauman said.

As the sound resonated in the studio, Bauman went into shock, started to hyperventilate, and an ambulance was called.

Because she was unable to walk or put any pressure on her leg, the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) student on staff at the studio checked to make sure she still had feeling in her toes.

“Even though I was in instant pain, I also felt like I didn’t feel anything. My whole body was just weak and tingling,” Bauman said.

After being rushed to Vassar Brothers Hospital in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Bauman was still in shock. She said there wasn’t a chance to cry or think about what the magnitude of her injury could mean for her dancing future.

Bauman has been seriously dancing since she was in second grade and has been in eight “Nutcracker” performances put on by Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet.

She then waited an agonizing two hours before the doctors could see her. She was evaluated, X-rayed, and bandaged before being sent home.

Bauman said her doctor compared her tendon to a “rubber band that had been overstretched.” Another comparison was to a melted mozzarella cheese stick that had been stretched out.

A Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) revealed her Achilles tendon appeared as a zigzag, not as a straight line as it should.

Bauman’s foot was bruised and swollen, and six inches up her leg there was a gap where she had torn her tendon. She could feel it by running her fingers along it.

Ten days after the accident, Bauman went into surgery to have her tendon sewn back together. Her father flew to New York to stay with her.

“I now have an epic five-to-six inch battle wound of a scar just on the inside of my leg,” Bauman said.

The three-phase recovery process consists of multiple casts, boots, crutches, and eventually physical therapy. However, the recovery time is uncertain.

According to Bauman, the first three to six months of recovery are for rehab and slowly getting back to being a normally functioning person.

As of now, she doesn’t know when she will be able to dance as she did before.

“It’s going to take a long time for me to be able to take a full class again, let alone get back into shape,” she said. “As long as I can dance in some respect, I will be happy.”

She said not having her family with her after her father left has been difficult and she has had to adapt to life by taking everything slowly and asking friends for help. She has also moved from the second to the first floor of her dorm to avoid stairs.

“Everything I have to do essentially takes me twice as long,” she said. “And any little problem instantly becomes more of an issue because I can’t get around and solve it quickly.

“I’m an independent person. I like to do things for myself, and that’s a little hard to do when you can’t even carry anything,” Bauman said.

Bauman was looking forward to coming home for Vassar’s Spring Break; she arrived in Sacramento on Friday.

Her mother, teacher Jane Bauman, has been talking to her whenever she gets a moment and helping as much as one can from 3,000 miles away, she said.

“When your child calls in tears to say she’s been to the emergency room by ambulance, it’s disturbing. Naturally, I was very upset, but as Claire was so emotional, I had to be calm and reassuring for her sake,” Bauman’s mother, said.

Senior Alison Levin, another ballerina who trains at a high level, said that although tearing the Achilles tendon is rare, it isn’t unheard-of in dancers.

“When you jump in ballet, if you don’t get your heels all the way down into the floor when you land, you cause many micro-tears [in the Achilles tendon]. Eventually the whole thing can snap if you keep doing it,” Levin said.

“People with tight Achilles are especially prone to injury, simply because it isn’t as elastic.”

Freshman Cori Locke, another ballerina, said that she was trained to take certain precautions when doing big jumps. Since she has a short Achilles tendon, all it takes is to land strangely and she, too, could tear it.

Bauman’s history with her left leg has been difficult. Because she suffered from tendonitis (inflammation and severe pain in the tendon) last year and had an abnormally thin Achilles tendon, she knew that an injury was possible.

But she added that men in their 30s and 40s are more prone to tear their Achilles than healthy young women like herself.

For now, Bauman said she’s holding on to her doctor’s promise that she’ll eventually return to the ballet that has been such a large part of her life.