FELIX IS my knight of transportation, my knight in shiny, black glory. My valiant, two-wheeled steed hailing from the kingdom of the Bicycle Link.
Felix is a mighty Earl Trek bicycle, an “affordable get-around bike built for street style.” Before introducing Felix into my world, I had relied solely upon bummed rides and SCAD transportation, which was usually anything but reliable.
My steed and I had a spotless relationship; he was so reliable, kind to the wallet, quick moving and easy to park (those of you with motor vehicles know the difficulty that comes with parking in Savannah).
I would carry my steed, resting on my shoulder, down our porch steps and off we would go.
Would I wear a helmet? No, of course not. You are being absurd! What use would I have for the fuddy-duddy’s buddy, the helmet?
I had mastered the art of biking. I was so at ease atop my bike, he had become like another appendage.
Felix and I would never arrive late, never be penniless and I did not need something as pesky as a helmet! Where would I put it when I went to class?
I loved the feel of my hair whipping back, off my face by the breeze; arriving at my destination looking lovely, with freshly wind-blown tresses. Besides, I would look like a total noob around all the uber cool kids who gather outside the Sentient Bean!
No one wore a helmet. If you were a hip kid my age, you would ride with hands off the bars, holding your phone texting or down at your sides.
Thirty minutes before March 9, 2012 began, Felix, driven by an inebriated Joy collided with a vehicle at the intersection of 34th and Drayton streets. I slammed into the side of the car, landed on the hood, my head denting where the window and roof met.
I ended up on the grassy knoll at the corner, sustaining yet another crack on my head. During that thrill ride, I sustained a hairline fracture to my right leg. At Memorial University Medical Center, tests showed that I had a “diffuse axonal injury, subrachnoid hemorrhage.”
Looking back on it now, I consider myself to have been an utter fool. I wonder if all the Sentient Bean patrons would still consider me a super cool chick sitting in my wheelchair, staring blankly at the wall.
I am one of the lucky ones. I survived a traumatic brain injury due to failure of abiding by basic traffic regulations.
For example; no helmet, no bike light and failure to stop at a stop sign. Because I thought I was too cool and biked too well to wear a helmet, I came close to having to wear a soft helmet at all times, to protect my head as I thrashed about in a wheelchair. If I am ever able to ride Felix again, you can bet I will be wearing a helmet (hopefully one with a unicorn horn).
Now that you have read this, I will take offense if you are inebriated at the helm of any form of transportation, if you do not wear a bicycle helmet, if you do not use a bike light, if you fail to act as vehicles do on the road.
I almost died. You do not have to.
This article appears in May 13-19, 2015.
An interesting story, but the implication that a helmet would have helped cannot be substantiated and is extremely unlikely to be true. Nowhere with a cycle helmet law can show any reduction in risk to cyclists, and the biggest ever study found an increase in risk with helmet wearing.
The author suffered a diffuse axonal injury, which is frequently caused by rapid rotation of the head, and it has been shown that cycle helmets can increase the likelihood of such injuries.
We should all learn from our mistakes, but not wearing a helmet was not one. The mistakes were riding without lights and riding drunk.
Check out cyclehelmets.org for the facts about helmets.
I’m glad to hear that Joy is okay, but this story is misleading. Cars drive very quickly down Drayton Street and the bicyclist stopping at the stop sign would have prevented this accident. Not to mention being sober and having a light.
Joy, thank you so much for bravely sharing your story and starting this important discussion. It is clear that you do so because you want others to learn from your experience. As a daily bicycle commuter, I wear a helmet. I feel naked without it. As a college student years ago, I admit my sentiments were similar to yours. Life experience tends to make us more cautious. I have lived in Savannah for nearly 7 years now, and during this time I have seen more people wearing helmets, including SCAD students. I would like to add that one of the most dangerous behaviors that I see on the cyclists’ end (I won’t begin to address cars here) is riding down streets on the wrong side of the road as well as using bike lanes in the wrong direction. I cringe every time I see this. I have witnessed several accounts of near accidents with cars and bikes riding the wrong way. Sadly, I’m aware of deaths that have resulted as well. Joy, I’m glad that you survived! Everyone has their times of indiscretion, but not everyone has the courage to declare their mistakes in an effort to help others. Bravo!
Dear Richard,
Quite some time ago I checked out cyclehelmets.org and they, like many internet sites have some good and some bad information.
I don’t know the source for your statement about diffuse axonal injury but that’s not been my experience unless the helmet is not fitted properly and catches on something.
I’m old enough to have a Medicare card and in my prime I rode and raced between 5 and 7 thousand miles a year. Heaven’s knows how many miles are in my legs but the bottom line is that I’ve got a bit of experience.
On at least three occasions I’ve crashed (two auto/bike and one bike/bike collision) with what would have been fatal or near fatal blows to the head but my helmet saved me. Each time I was sober and obeying the laws. Accidents happen! The motorist was at fault in each of the auto/bike collisions.
In one of them, a head-on with a minivan that abruptly turned left, I bounced off it and “flew 30 feet through the air” according to a witness then landed on my head. I know I would have been dead or severely brain damaged without a helmet but was carted away for surgery on … my knee. Head was fine.
So, thanks Joy for the article and I hope people heed your call.
Richard, check out the Tour de France this summer. Those guys wear helmets. They’re professionals. It’s a multi-million dollar enterprise and those millions are at stake in the riders’ safety. If you were right. They’d be bareheaded like they used to be before it was evident that helmets save lives.
“Dear Richard,
Quite some time ago I checked out cyclehelmets.org and they, like many internet sites have some good and some bad information.“
Cyclehelmets.org is the most comprehensive collection of publicly available research about cycle helmets, and it is inclusive, having all research, whatever its conclusions. I can only assume that the bad information you refer to is that which has been conclusively disproved, the research which shows huge benefits from helmet wearing.
“I don’t know the source for your statement about diffuse axonal injury but that’s not been my experience unless the helmet is not fitted properly and catches on something.”
There is a considerable body of evidence about DAI e.g. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1182.html
You seem to have misunderstood what DAI is, as having a properly fitted helmet, one which has minimal movement on the head, will increase the risk of DAI. When helmets are involved in a collision, they inevitably “catch on” something, otherwise there is no collision, so I’m not sure I understand your point.
“I’m old enough to have a Medicare card and in my prime I rode and raced between 5 and 7 thousand miles a year. Heaven’s knows how many miles are in my legs but the bottom line is that I’ve got a bit of experience.”
I too have many years and miles experience, but I prefer evidence rather than disproved opinion. All the reliable evidence shows that cycle helmets at best make no difference to cyclists’ safety, and at worst, increase risk.
“On at least three occasions I’ve crashed (two auto/bike and one bike/bike collision) with what would have been fatal or near fatal blows to the head but my helmet saved me.”
So how is it that nowhere with a massive increase in helmet wearing, whether due to a law or propaganda campaign, is there any reduction in risk to cyclists?
“In one of them, a head-on with a minivan that abruptly turned left, I bounced off it and “flew 30 feet through the air” according to a witness then landed on my head. I know I would have been dead or severely brain damaged without a helmet but was carted away for surgery on … my knee. Head was fine.”
Your certainty is misplaced, and unless you repeat the collision in exactly the same circumstances without a helmet and are then killed or seriously injured, it is an unjustifiable assumption. There are thousands of these “helmet saved my life” stories, and if even a tiny fraction of them were true, the death rate to cyclists would fall as helmet wearing increased, but it doesn’t and the stories cannot be true.
“Richard, check out the Tour de France this summer. Those guys wear helmets. They’re professionals. It’s a multi-million dollar enterprise and those millions are at stake in the riders’ safety. If you were right. They’d be bareheaded like they used to be before it was evident that helmets save lives.”
And your assumption that the riders are wearing helmets because it makes them safer is also false. There are two reasons they wear them: they are sponsored and the rules say they have to, so no helmet, no ride, no income. There is limited data about risk to professionals because there are relatively few of them, but such as exists doesn’t seem to show that cycle helmets make them any safer.
But you are right about the multi-million dollar enterprise, but not in the way you think. Cycle helmet propaganda and laws have two effects: a reduction in the number of cyclists and obscene profits for those making and selling helmets, there is no safety benefit. Helmets cost peanuts to make and are sold at an incredible mark up, and it’s all based on a myth.
Regarding riding without helmets, you don’t want to wear a helmet, go ahead knock yourself out. I’ve only cracked one helmet while bicycling about 70,000 miles in the last 20-something years, and that happened after about 66,000 miles. The helmet worked perfectly. It cracked in two places on either side of the point of impact. I got up, counted my fingers, came up with a reasonable number, looked at all the nasty stuff in all the scrapes around my body and decided my best course of action would be to head home and clean my wounds. I was sober and I didn’t run a stop sign. A crazed young male cat dashed under my wheels and when I managed to dodge him on the first pass, the maniac doubled back and got me to cross up my front wheel and go down hard. The two cracks in my helmet rather than my head are substantiation enough for me–I’d have left the scene on a gurney without it. If you are perfect and live in a perfect world, you probably don’t need a helmet. Otherwise I repeat, you don’t want to wear a helmet, go ahead, knock yourself out. Good on you, Joy, for your article. I hope you and Felix are back on the road soon.
Joy, thank you for the article. I am not necessarily a helmet advocate (except for my kids) but your personal experience and pics re-opened my eyes.
I grew up in the Southern California Surf/Skate/Mountain Bike/Motorcycle Scene (I am 46). We covered a lot of ground in those days with and without helmets.
I don’t remember any deaths with someone wearing a helmet.
The only death I can remember out of all of the many, many crashes I have seen or been involved in is when a very good friend of mine did NOT have a helmet on, ate it on a skateboard, hit his head, stayed conscious for awhile but died a little while later at the hospital.
Such a simple thing as a helmet may have prevented his death.