Always Wear a Helmet
In my first ride-along we responded to a call where a guy fell at a skate park. When we got there he was conscious and talking coherently. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet when he fell and a bruise was forming above his eye. With no scrapes, we assumed it was a concussion and black eye.
We talked him into coming with us to the ER just to double-check. We get him in the ambulance, lay him down, and his blood pressure had gone down significantly since our first check. Then it took a very dark turn. We turned on the sirens and started fluids, but his blood pressure kept dropping.
He was unconscious by the time we got to the ER. Skipping the bruise meant we hadn’t felt the soft skin filling with blood and the crushed bone around his eye and cheek. He ended up having emergency brain surgery. He recovered to skate another day, and hopefully will remember his helmet. localhelic0pter7