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Nine students heard first-hand accounts from trauma and brain surgeons about protecting their heads in a presentation last month encouraging them to wear bike helmets. Students from the BWH Science Works program learned from trauma surgeon Selwyn Rogers, MD, MPH, and neurosurgeon William Gormley, MD, as well as the BWH Trauma Program Bike Helmet Committee.
Gormley, a neurosurgeon who often operates on patients with traumatic brain injuries, explained that when an accident involving the head occurs, the brain can slam into the skull and cause long-term damage.
A Jell-O mold of the brain helped demonstrate its fragility. Using a helmet can absorb the impact of a fall, protecting both the skull and the brain from permanent injury, as students learned by dropping the mold with and without a helmet.
“If you have a way of diffusing injury, there won’t be an impact on the brain,” said Gormley, who added that the worst injuries he sees are from accidents involving motorcycle and bicycle riders who do not wear helmets.
The students learned how to fit a helmet and then picked out helmets to take home, courtesy of the BWH Trauma Program Bike Helmet Committee: Yvonne Michaud, RN, Elaine Devine, LICSW, Cheryl Ventola, CCRN, Laura Garren, OT, Melissa Dwyer, OT, and Melanie Parker, PT. The committee will give away 200 bike helmets to local students this month as part of a grant it received.