Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Sunday ride reminds cyclists about value of helmets
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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The hard part of Sam and Helen Butler's Sunday morning bike ride was over as they pedaled casually onto the Roanoke River Greenway after a ride up Mill Mountain and on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
At least it was supposed to be over.
As he rode under the Franklin Road bridge, Sam Butler didn't see the deep pothole in the middle of the path.
His front wheel dove into the hole -- since covered with a hazard marker -- and instantly sent the rider to the ground, hard.
"We weren't going that fast," Helen Butler said Monday. "Maybe 5, 10 miles per hour."
Butler was sitting on the path, dusty and stunned, when I pedaled up a moment later, just a few minutes into my own ride.
"I think I just got the wind knocked out of me," he said.
But when his pain didn't subside, I pulled out my cellphone and called 911.
Fifteen minutes later Butler was taking an ambulance ride to the emergency room at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
He was diagnosed with a broken collarbone.
"He's going to have surgery Friday," Helen Butler said.
It could have been worse.
Sam Butler's helmet was broken in half by the impact of the crash.
"It was just a cheap helmet we bought at Wal-Mart," his wife said. "He's been taking it with him to the doctor and telling them he would be in neuro-intensive care if he hadn't been wearing it."
Helen Butler knows too well what could have been.
As the executive director of Brain Injury Services of Virginia, she manages nine caseworkers who help victims of brain trauma. Most of the patients are hurt in auto accidents, but Butler estimates that her group works with about 20 people each year who have been involved in bike accidents.
Helmets are not magic.
John Bell, a 58-year-old surgeon from Lynchburg, was wearing a helmet when he was hit by a car and killed over the Memorial Day weekend.
But study after study has found that certified helmets reduce the likelihood of serious head injuries during bike crashes.
"I just don't understand why people don't wear them, unless they can't afford them," Helen Butler said.
She is trying to help with that, seeking grant money to help provide helmets for low-income adults, including some for whom a bike is their primary means of transportation.
Fortunately, not being able to afford a helmet is less of an issue for youngsters than it could be thanks to the efforts of some safety advocates.
Butler's group recently doled out about 200 helmets to underprivileged children.
In Roanoke, where a city ordinance requires kids 14 and under to wear helmets while biking, the city police department also passes out helmets to kids.
The department takes a preemptive approach, such as handing out helmets at school bicycle rodeos, said Lt. James Fazio.
Some officers carry helmets with them to hand out to kids on the street. Parents can also get helmets simply by stopping by the police station and asking.
"We're not out there fining these kids," Fazio said. "We want compliance."
Fazio, who estimates that the department has handed out about 1,000 helmets to children, said it's difficult to track the results of the helmet ordinance because the only incidents the department records are serious crashes and collisions between bikes and automobiles.
Helmets are like child safety seats, Fazio said.
"If you get the kids used to them, they'll feel naked without them," he said.
Fazio, who worked on the committee that came up with the Roanoke youth helmet ordinance, said he personally has seen the impact of the program.
He remembers giving a kid a helmet shortly after the rule went into effect.
"About 40 minutes later that kid crashed and broke his helmet in half," Fazio said. "Talk about karma.
"That could have saved his life."
As paramedics helped Sam Butler on Sunday, two serious cyclists pedaled by. They were wearing helmets, but I recognized them and I know they often don't.
I hope they're wearing those helmets when their heads hit the pavement, something that will eventually happen. If they're not, I hope I'm not there to see it.
