Trampled cheerleader used to live in Marion

The Daily Inter Lake

A Seattle cheerleader who was inadvertently trampled by her high school football team is a former Marion School student.

Cali Kaltschmidt, who lived in Marion through the sixth grade, had been crowned homecoming queen and was making a last-minute adjustment to a banner on the Auburn High School football field Friday night when the team (on the other side of the banner) began running.

A 6-foot, 245-pound player knocked her over, and video of the accident became a popular clip on the YouTube video-sharing Web site.

Kaltschmidt's aunt, Karla Cartwright of Kalispell, said her niece wasn't injured - but was having a bad week. She had been in a car accident the day before. During an interview with KOMO-TV, Kaltschmidt said her car was totaled and her neck was bruised from that accident.

A third bout of bad luck struck Saturday night after the homecoming dance, went a car Kaltschmidt was borrowing wouldn't start. She and her friends went to get a gas can at 1:30 a.m., thinking it was simply on empty, but the vehicle still failed to start, Cartwright said.

Getting trampled by football players isn't something Kaltschmidt wants to be known for, she told a TV reporter.

"It was a little embarrassing," she said. "I barely got there [to the banner] and - smack."

While the knockdown "hurt really bad," Kaltschmidt wasn't injured.

One bright spot in being in the wrong place at the wrong time: The television show "Good Morning America" is flying her and her father, Ken Kaltschmidt, and her twin sister, Sierra, to New York City for an interview.