Kevin Signo, an 18-year-old Baylor University freshman, was pronounced dead Sunday after he broke his neck while attempting a backflip during a dance rehearsal, NBC affiliate KCEN reports.
Signo sustained the fatal spinal injury during a pause between practicing dance routines with the Filipino Students Association, NBC notes.
Busloads of students are expected to make the journey from Baylor's Waco, Texas, campus to Allen, Texas, for Signo's funeral on Saturday, the network said. Signo was from Frisco, Texas.
According to WacoTrib.com, the mishap happened in a Baylor gymnasium about 8:30 p.m. Saturday. He was declared dead at a nearby hospital at 4 a.m. Sunday.
Signo, who was majoring in pre-biology, belonged to several school groups, including Asians For Christ, and loved to play soccer, according to the Baylor Lariat school newspaper.
Freak campus accidents that result in death or serious injury are rare, but they do happen.
In 2011, a Yale student was killed when her hair got caught in a lathe at a chemistry lab. Last April, a Goucher College basketball player was play-wrestling with a friend in a dorm when he fell on his neck, bruising his spinal cord.