Children on bicycles and wearing helmets
With the good weather, any afternoon is good to go for a bike ride with the children. But before catching the bikes and pedaling out the door, it's important to keep in mind the use of the helmet for the safety of the little one.
Eight out of ten children They go to the emergency room after having suffered an accident with the bike, they were not wearing helmets at the time of the impact and most of them, when driving through urban areas.
Cycling is the sport in which children go to the Emergency Room more. Therefore, in June the new law that obligates people was applied under 16 years who ride a bicycle through the city, always wear the helmet. Measure that came with the reform of the Traffic Law. In the case of infringement of not wearing it will mean a fine of 200 euros.
Children on bicycles
- Until the age of ten, they are, as a general rule, the parents who still decide. Also, children if they fall, do not do much because the impact is small to go slowly and fall from low.
- After ten years. The child begins to reveal himself and no longer wants to use the helmet. However, it is at this age that there is the greatest risk. The older there is a greater independence of movement that, added to the behavioral change of the preadolescent, leads to a increased risk of injury. We can be talking about a teenager of 14 or 15 years of up to 70 kilos in weight, which on a downhill can reach speeds of 60 kilometers per hour
What happens during a bicycle accident
The main risk factors for the seriousness of an accident are the lack of a helmet and the collision with a moving motor vehicle. Hitting the head against the ground is the most common in a fall. Cranioencephalic trauma is the main cause of income in the intensive care unit in pediatrics. The brain moves inside the skull and hits it. The use of the helmet plays a fundamental role since it absorbs the blow and decreases the abrupt displacement of the brain inside the skull.
Consequences of accident by bicycle
- Skull fracture are internal injury and injuries inside the brain. They involve the loss of neurons, the only cells in the body that do not regenerate: we are born with a certain number and if we lose them, we can not recover them. It is a direct damage that occurs in the nervous tissue.
- Hemorrhage or bruise. The brain has the precise size to lodge in the skull. Any protrusion that grows will cause it to become compressed, with possible sequelae: from losing one of the senses or speech, to partial or total paralysis, leaving the patient in a vegetative state. Or even die.
Noelia de Santiago Monteserín
