Promoting Helmet Safety Through Girl Scouts

By: Mailelani Lessenberry

My family and I moved to Northwest Arkansas nearly three years ago. Bentonville, Arkansas is often called the “Mountain Bike Capital of the World,” and you can’t go anywhere in the area without seeing someone riding a bike. Because of all the two-wheeling activity around here – whether it’s mountain biking, BMXing, road biking, or gravel riding – I decided to do my Girl Scout Gold Award project on traumatic brain injury (TBI) awareness and the importance of helmet safety. It’s an occurrence that affects many people on bikes. In fact, the number one cause of hospital visits among children is due to bicycle accidents, and the leading cause of death and disability is from head injuries.

Similar to a Boy Scouts Eagle Project, a Gold Award Project is the final and highest award a Girl Scout can achieve. For most of my life, I’ve been riding bikes and skateboarding, and although I have only experienced small accidents and sustained minor scrapes, bruises, and concussions, I felt compelled to spread awareness about TBI and just how often it happens.

With this project, I started a social media campaign called Our Grey Matters Facts, which can be found on Instagram. I am hoping to partner with many organizations just like BIAA to create online content that will spread the word about brain injuries and how wearing helmets can help prevent them.

I know many kids, and even some adults, who choose not to wear helmets while riding a bicycle, skateboard, or scooter, because they think they’re inconvenient or uncool to wear. Some even think that since they’ve been going without a helmet for so long and nothing bad has happened to them yet that nothing bad will happen to them. Experiencing a traumatic brain injury, however, is far from cool. Helmets are quite affordable and immensely cheaper than hospital treatment from an injury. Wearing a helmet will reduce the hazard of structural head injuries, skull fractures, and fatality, and they are designed to scatter the force and energy sustained upon impact, which decreases the damage to the skull and brain. A concussion may still occur, but wearing a helmet is likely to lessen the impact and overall injury.

Traumatic brain injuries are very dangerous and pose a major risk to everyone, especially our youth. We can help protect our future by taking care of the brains of the younger generations. By using our heads and choosing to wear a helmet, and by telling others about the potential hazards, we can prevent TBI and reduce the number of accidents, hospital trips, and fatalities.

After a personal experience with traumatic brain injury and doing the research on this topic, I discovered a lot about TBI that has encouraged me to be much more careful about protecting my head. I hope that you, too, will remember to put safety first when it comes to protecting the most important organ in our bodies, especially in young growing children. Our futures depend on it!