Earlier this week Richmond Rescue responded to the call we all dread; "Richmond Rescue respond to car vs. bicycle. Nine year old on the ground". On the way to the call we discussed some of the possibilities of injuries and came up with plans on how to treat them. When we arrived on scene our patient was surrounded by many neighbors and we feared the worst. After walking over to her we found her looking up at us with no obvious injuries. Our initially assessment found nothing significant and we relocated to the ambulance to get the whole story and have a quieter place to talk.
Our patient was out riding on the road and lost control of her bike. The approaching car realized that something was wrong and was quickly slowing down. The two of them collided at a low speed and the biker was thrown to the ground. She hit her head on the pavement but wasn't complaining of any head pain due to the helmet. Upon looking at the helmet we found a big dent in the back. We also found a small scrape on an elbow that wasn't even band-aid worthy.
The interesting part of this story for us is that she obtained her bike helmet at Richmond Rescue's biennial bike helmet giveaway. Over the course of this program we have given away more than 250 bike helmets and provided trained EMTs to make sure the helmet was adjusted to the rider's head.
We are committed to not only providing treatment for people that are sick or injured, we also have a number of programs designed to prevent injury and make our response more timely in the event of an emergency. The programs include free car seat fittings, E911 address signs, the File of Life program and many educational programs at the local schools.
Make sure to look for us in the spring for our fourth bike helmet give away.
Thanks to our patient's mother for allowing us to use the photo.
