I am on vacation with the family in the Outer Banks in North Carolina this week. Michele and I rented bikes and were riding back to the rental house when I heard a noise behind me. I glanced back to see another rider splayed in the middle of the road. He’d been clipped by a car.
I ran up to him and flagged the traffic to stop. He didn’t respond to what I was saying to him at all. I called 911 and a woman ran up from a stopped car. Luckily for him (and me) she was a trauma nurse and held his head in place.
I held his hand as we waited as what seemed like a long time, but what actually was under 5 minutes for a team of paramedics to arrive. He kept squeezing my hand but couldn’t respond to our words. The nurse and I talked to him and he only spoke once, telling us his name was Steven.
I have no doubt that without his helmet, I would have run up to him and found a dead man. Last year, my friend Lilo died in a bicycle accident when he wasn’t wearing a helmet.
Please, please wear a helmet while riding your bicycle.
4 thoughts on “Wear your helmet”
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My wife rides horses and we live next to a riding stable. Amazing how many adults, and how many kids, do not wear a helmet. It is a long fall off a horse and rocks, pavement, etc. don’t yield to a brain pan.
I agree on the helmets!
NC outer banks is my platonic ideal of beaches. My family camped there twice when I was a kid. Sand, waves, yeah!
I’ve been wearing a helmet on my bike for over 25 years. I rode from Chicago to San Francisco in 1979 and took a ‘header’ over the handlebars just outside Eugene, OR. I ran into soft ashphalt, my front end stopped dead, and the back flipped me over. I landed pretty much on my head and my old vintage Bell bicycle helmet saved me from serious injury. I had some scrapes, but nothing serious.
I’M A BELIEVER!!!
Thank God you were there!