Photos courtesy Josh Porter
Josh Porter (back right) and Kendra Heap (bottom right) pose with a group of friends at a relay race.
Josh and Kendra (far right) met as members of the BYU-I activities association. Kendra’s mother, Mary, broke her pelvis while the group was playing with a human sling shot at last year’s Mothers’ Weekend.

The dangers of Mothers’ Weekend

How one mother left Rexburg in a wheelchair last year

Ashley Walker FRE05015@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

Mothers’ Weekend may bring joy, but it can — in a roundabout way — also bring pain. Josh Porter, a senior from Charlotte, N.C., recalls a mishap that left his friend’s mom in the hospital.

“Mothers’ Weekend last year my friend Kendra Heap, [a sophomore from Bozeman, Mont.,] brought her mom and her little sister down for Mothers’ Weekend, and her mom brought this game her family likes to play called the human slingshot,” Porter said.

Heap and a group of friends joined together for the game.

“At first, my mom didn’t want to join in because her shoes were slick and she was afraid she would slip and fall,” Heap said.

“I had all kinds of excuses … I should have known better,” said Mary Heap, Kendra’s mom.

The human slingshot consists of a rubber band large enough to hold four people facing one another.

“They bounce off the ends and kind of cross each other as they are going across the rubber band,” Porter said.

They thought the Human slingshot was the ideal Mormon game: sounded simple enough, fun enough, and dangerous enough.

After bouncing around in this human slingshot a couple of times, Mary — let’s call her Mom Heap — decided to take a bounce.

“She lost her balance and fell … and Josh fell directly on top of her,” Kendra said.

Mom Heap couldn’t move. She tried to pull herself up, but to no avail. A couple of boys carried her into the house and gave her a blessing, then rushed her to the hospital.

After one bounce and a large human flying at her, Mom Heap had a broken pelvis.

“I spent the rest of the weekend in the hospital,” she said.

Kendra also stayed there with her mom.

“I felt really bad about that. It’s about a year ago now, so I guess you can kind of laugh about it now,” Porter said.

Mom Heap spent the next two weeks recovering in a wheelchair.

“It made for a memorable weekend,” Mom Heap said.

“Definitely an interesting experience. Beware of the human slingshot and Mothers’ Weekend. Mothers beware of the human slingshot,” Porter said.

What did Mom Heap learn from her little adventure?

“I am not going to play any games with Josh,” Mom Heap said. “I learned my lesson to succumb to [student] pressure … I want to do Mothers’ Weekend, but I never want to do [the human slingshot] again.”