15-year-old girl in coma fighting for life after horrific accident while excitedly celebrating her graduation

A young girl clings to life at a Utah children's hospital after being thrown headfirst onto the sidewalk while car surfing.

Ava Broadhead, 15, met with friends at a park outside Salt Lake City on Wednesday night after her school's homecoming parade was canceled due to “poor air quality.”

Now the young dance fanatic is in a coma with severe brain damage and her distraught mother is inundated with messages from people whose children have fallen victim to the same deadly trend.

“I'm sure he was thinking, 'Hey! We should do this, this would be fun,' not, 'Oh, wait, what if I fell off this car,'” said mother Kandis George of West Valley City.

“All of these things will disappear from my life because I enjoy them right now.”

But she spent Saturday in an artificial coma, fighting for her life after going car surfing with friends

The sophomore was looking forward to dancing with her drill team at the homecoming football game when the events were suddenly canceled at Cypress High School on the western edge of Salt Lake City.

Ava and her friends made their way to the nearby Magna Regional Park, where the tragic accident occurred around 9 p.m.

“The victim was on top of the car and as the car was going around, the victim fell off and unfortunately the pavement is not that forgiving and the victim hit his head,” Sergeant Aymee Race of the Unified Police Department told Fox13.

“With these people getting on these cars and car surfing after they fall, it's unpredictable what kind of injuries they can sustain.”

The CDC's most recent study counted 58 deaths from car surfing in the 18 years to 2008, but the death toll has continued to rise rapidly, exacerbated by social media.

In May last year, a 16-year-old boy died in Douglas County, Colorado, after witnesses saw back seat passengers “hanging” out the windows of the car before it crashed.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office said it received six reports of car surfing incidents in less than a month around the time of the deaths, with some of the vehicles traveling at speeds as high as 55 miles per hour.

“It can be anything from kids hanging on the roofs of cars to kids hanging in the back of cars and standing out the windows and then driving those vehicles at medium to high speeds,” Sergeant Race told Fox13.

“Unfortunately, social media has its ups and downs with trends like this, and right now this trend is on the rise again. It came from the '80s and from movies, it was a major trend ten years ago, and now we're back here and this trend is on the rise again.”

Mother Kandis George with daughters Elle (left) and Ava (right)

Ava's mother hijacked her daughter's Facebook page to send her friends a clear and uncompromising message

Ava's father, David Broadhead, asked friends to pray for his daughter. “This weekend is extremely important for her progress,” he wrote on Facebook

Ava's friends called her mother on Wednesday evening to tell her about the accident, and George found her daughter in critical condition at the city's children's hospital.

“She had a severe brain injury and had to undergo immediate brain surgery. It was a life-or-death operation,” George said.

“She is in an artificial coma, just staying stable and her brain can rest.”

“The parade was cancelled due to poor air quality and so all the children were ready to go out and have fun,” she added.

“They've chosen a trend called – I don't think you see it on TikTok anymore, but you can look for it elsewhere – car surfing.”

Ava's father, David Broadhead, said his daughter was “in an extremely critical but stable condition.”

“This weekend is crucial for their progress,” he wrote on Facebook.

“I know angels guided the surgeons to do what they needed to do to relieve the pressure on her brain. I ask everyone to pray for my beautiful daughter, OK? Please?”

TikTok has blocked searches for the term “carsurfing,” but Ava's mother says that doesn't seem to have affected its popularity.

“I've received over 30 messages from people saying this happened to my nephew, this happened to my neighbor, this is exactly what happened to my friend's daughter,” she said.

“They're suffering the same injuries, these traumatic brain injuries, that keep happening. And we have to do something.”

“We need to raise awareness because it doesn't stop. These kids think it's funny. It was on Teen Wolf and Hollywood has glamorized it.”

Ava's friends in the Salt Lake Community College Dance Company sent her a get well soon message

Her friends on the Cypress High School drill team agreed.

Ava has not yet responded to her messages as she fights for her life in a children's hospital

Ava's friends from the Salt Lake Community College dance team posted a get-well message on their Instagram page, and George took to her daughter's Facebook page to give her friends a tough message.

“Hi everyone, I'm Ava and this is actually my mom writing this,” she wrote. “The reason she's writing this is because I'm in a coma at Primary Children's Hospital while I recover from emergency brain surgery I had late Wednesday night.”

“So why did I need brain surgery? Because I decided to do the trendy thing 'car surfing' and was thrown out of the car and suffered severe brain trauma.

“Now I'm wearing a hospital gown, half of my head is shaved (so much for cute hair), and I'm going to sleep the entire weekend after I get home and try to heal my brain.

“It will be a long road in which I will have to relearn how to walk, tie my shoes and brush my teeth.”

A GoFundMe page has been set up with a fundraising goal of $100,000 to help Ava pay her horrendous medical bills as she tries to escape the brink.

“I can't imagine a future where Ava is no longer Ava,” her mother said. “It will take months, if not years, to recover from this.”