I took my friend Kathy out on a ride on Saturday. At mile 11.5 she lost control of her bike going down a hill at 20 mph and went head first into the road. A passing driver called an Ambulance and it arrived within 5 minutes. She was unconscious for a couple of minutes. As you can see from the pictures, the hemlet made a difference.
Just look at how compressed the one side is.
It was scary seeing someone that hurt and unconscious. I was ahead of her and I heard her go down. I turned around and saw that she fell. Then I saw that she was very twisted and moving in a weird way. At first I thought she broke her collarbone. She was moving, but not conscious or aware. She had a "beyond blank" look in her eyes. She was very bloody. After I determined she had not broken her collarbone, I carefully positioned her so that she was on her back and elevated her legs. I also tried to keep her "awake", I didn't want her eyes to close and have her go completly unconscious. After 2-3 minutes she became coherent. "What happened?" was the first thing she said. Then "How's my bike?", I knew she was going to be alright at that point. Five minutes after the wreck, the Bellingham EMS trucks came and they took over.
This helmet took the brunt of the impact.
Amazingly, she has no broken bones. Not even a cracked skull. Again, the helmet pretty much saved her life.
- Kathy's Wreck @11.5 miles. The remainder of the route is from when the bikes were being transported to the Bellingham Police Station for safe keeping.
