A stunned crowd at Rec Hall watched in silence Saturday night as Iowa gymnast Dillon Ashton lay with his lower body motionless on the floor exercise mat for nearly three minutes.

Ashton was performing a full twisting double back in his floor routine but opened up too late and landed on the back of his neck. It is a "D" move, the highest degree of difficulty in gymnatics,

"It's the worst fall I've seen," Iowa coach Tom Dunn said. "It makes me wonder if I made a coaching error by letting him use that trick. He's used that trick all season and never missed. I guess he just got lost in the air."

The crowd reacted to the fall with a simultaneous "Oh!" while Ashton lay still on the carpet for a few seconds before he put his hands behind his head.

Ashton, a junior at Iowa, appeared to be alright when he moved his legs a few times. A security guard who helped carry him out, said Ashton was in pain but joked with his mother and ambulance drivers.

Doctors and trainers attended to Ashton for about 10 minutes before a stretcher and neck brace were brought out and they carried him out of the gym to the applause of the audience.

X-rays at the hospital revealed no severe injuries but Ashton was held overnight for observation. A supervisor there said he remained in satisfactory condition yesterday morning but did not know when he would be released.

Iowa gymnasts were devastated by the loss of one of their top scorers. Ashton is the eighth-ranked vaulter in the country with a 9.55 average and also has a 9.5 average in the floor exercise.

Chris Kabat competed in the floor excercise for Iowa right after Ashton's fall and scored a 9.0, which is below his average. He said Ashton's fall was tough to deal with because of it's severity.

"He broke it. That's the first thing I said," Kabat said. "To see him laying there was scary. It messed me all up. But I sucked it up, went out and had to do it."

Kabat missed his dismount on his routine, which Dunn said he hasn't done all year.

"It takes the edge away from our competitiveness," Dunn said.

The Lions' Mike Masucci was next up after Ashton on the floor exercise. He said he just tried to concentrate on his own routine.

"I was worried about Ashton," Masucci said. "But I just tried to focus on my routine and how long I had to stand there."

"That's the worst thing for a gymnast to see, and it's just something you don't even want to think about," Wayne Cowden said.

Despite the apparent severity of Ashton's injury, it may have served to bring the Iowa team closer together. They came together in a huddle after Ashton was carried off the floor. Assistant coach Mike Burns said he told the team: "Let's do it for Dillon."

"This team is very close," Burns said. "That's our strength this year."

Coaches could only guess at what caused Ashton to miss the landing. Gymnasts train extremely hard to know where they are in the air at all times, Penn State assistant coach Randy Jepson said.

"He had enough height," Jepson said. "I guess he didn't realize where he was until it was too late. It was fortunate he opened up when he did or he might have landed more on top of his head."