Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Helmetless horror

Wednesday, 18 March

I don't rant here very often, but some messages deserve endless repeating.

A woman who works where I do died last week after colliding with a car while riding her bike to work. Harborview staff actually came here to tell her husband (who was in a meeting and unreachable by phone) that his wife was brain dead. She was not wearing a helmet; neither she nor her husband ever did when they rode their bikes. Medical personnel told her family she would still be alive if she had been wearing a helmet.

No matter who you are, how invincible you are, how long you've been riding, how good your bike-handling skills, how quiet your street, how short your ride, how long you've ridden without ever falling down, if you get on your bike without a helmet on your head, you are not only an idiot but an idiot with no thought of those who love you (or even those who only like you) who might have to hear that you're brain dead in some hospital. If you don't care enough about yourself to think you need a helmet, at least care for those around you and reduce the potential for tragic news.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Here, here.

jesslover said...

I could not agree with this more.

Kevin said...

Can we all chime in with a big "AMEN"?

Brian said...

A helmet has saved my life twice, when I crashed as a junior and then a couple years ago before Vance Creek when I totaled a car with my face.

Feels weird to even ride a trainer indoors without one.

MT said...

Tragic. It boggles me to see people ride without one.

Like Brian, I've had a helmet save me twice, once while doing my best to imitate a bug on a truck windshield and just recently on 4/4. In that crash I hit hard enough to feel my brain smack my skull. The helmet fractured in eight places but held together.

Had I not been wearing a helmet in either crash, I would be dead.