Protect Your Child

As a wannabe biker myself, I enjoyed watching the Tour de France and Lance Armstrong’s 5th consecutive victory. I was especially pleased to see all the pro riders wearing helmets, which while a mandated safety rule of the tour, is nevertheless, something every bicycle rider should always do. Unfortunately, I still see many local riders biking without helmets.

In my 25 years as a physician, I have seen and heard of countless tragic accidents, which could have been prevented simply by wearing a helmet. These range from death to permanent lifelong crippling brain injuries robbing children of a normal life and burdening their families with intensive medical care. A local popular and prominent pediatrician died years ago when he fell just turning around in the street and striking his head on the curb. A helmet would have saved his life and saved his family from the grief and hardship of this tragic loss. Only God knows how many more children’s lives he might have helped had he continued to practice.

I recently saw a teenage boy in my office after a bike accident. He had been riding without his helmet and crashed, striking his head. He was seen in the emergency room where a CT scan showed no evidence of brain injury and came to me because of bleeding from his left ear. After carefully suctioning the blood from his ear canal, I could see the blood was coming from behind a large tear in the eardrum. Every Ear, Nose and Throat specialist knows that this indicates a fracture in the temporal bone of the skull. The temporal bone contains all hearing structures, the facial nerve which moves the face, the internal carotid artery and jugular vein. All of these are at risk with a temporal bone fracture.

I obtained a hearing test, which showed a severe hearing loss. I warned his parent that he was at risk for delayed bleeding in the brain, which could be fatal and that delicate structures (bones) in the ear may have been damaged which would probably require microsurgery in the future to correct. Fortunately, his face still moved on that side. Unfortunately, when he returned later that week, his entire left face was totally paralyzed from delaying swelling around the facial nerve. I immediately started him on Prednisone (steroids) to decrease pressure on the nerve and stressed the importance of protecting the unblinking eye to avoid eye complications.

Most of the time this kind of delayed facial paralysis will recover with treatment. His loss of hearing can probably be corrected with surgery. Life threatening complications are not likely now.

This easily could have been your child or spouse. If anyone in your family rides a bicycle, skateboard, or four-wheeler, buy them a cool helmet they will want to wear and make them wear it. It is no different than wearing a seat belt in a car.

By getting someone to wear a helmet, you may be preventing a death or tragedy just as much as a doctor, nurse, policeman or fireman does. Do not let your inaction result in tragedy for your family. It is up to you.

Dr. Chuck Guice