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Bike Helmet Crushed, But Head Fine
Madison.com ^ | May 12, 2007 | Mary Yeater Rathburn

Posted on 05/12/2007 5:53:09 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin

A white paneled delivery truck ran over a UW-Madison graduate student's head on Division Street Friday afternoon and, except for a concussion, he wasn't hurt.

Ryan Lipscomb, 26, said he was riding his bicycle pretty fast down the East Isthmus Bike Path where it parallels Eastwood Drive on Madison's east side just before 3 p.m. Eastwood had a green light, so the crosswalk for the bike path showed a white walk sign, Lipscomb said.

He saw the large truck, the kind that usually makes deliveries to offices, coming down Eastwood, preparing to make a right turn onto Division Street. Lipscomb said he could tell the truck wasn't going to stop. So Lipscomb slammed on his breaks, flipping his bike and throwing himself into the street. He landed right at the intersection of Eastwood and Division.

The truck ran over his head.

"I didn't see it coming, but I sure felt it roll over my head. It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head."

His helmet, a Giro, was crushed, but Lipscomb's head was fine.

Madison Police Department Sgt. Chris Boyd said the officer at the scene urged Lipscomb to keep the helmet. He did. It is all flattened and mangled and broken, unlike his head.

Even though the truck did not stop, Boyd initially refused to call the incident a hit-and-run. She said the police were not sure that the truck driver knew that someone had been hit. But Sgt. Bernie Gonzalez said later in the evening that the accident report calls it a hit-and-run.

Lipscomb agrees with Gonzalez.

"The truck driver definitely would have known. You know when you run over a curb and my head was definitely higher than a curb." Moreover, Lipscomb said, he was already in the street as the truck was turning. "He had to have seen me."

He was taken to University Hospital, but was released by about 6 p.m. "I'm OK except for a concussion," he said Friday night about 10 p.m.

He better hope he is. Lipscomb, who is studying medical physics in the School of Medicine, has an exam Monday and another Tuesday.

This is not his only brush with headache-causing fame this spring. Lipscomb is the treasurer of the UW-Madison Teaching Assistants' Association's political action committee. Mike Quieto, who worked as a limited-term election aid in the City Clerk's Office in March and April, is accused of forging Lipscomb's name three times to the organization's campaign finance report. The Ethics Board is tentatively scheduled to hear the case later this month.

And next week, Bike to Work Week begins. But Lipscomb didn't say whether he was going to get back on the saddle on Monday.


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Hobbies; Sports
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1 posted on 05/12/2007 5:53:11 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head."

Yah, I bet that is a totally new experience.

Lipscomb, who is studying medical physics

I would think his experience would make a good term paper. The physical prosperities of the bike helmet, his skull and the mass and force of the truck rolling over both. Interesting dynamics.

2 posted on 05/12/2007 6:02:46 PM PDT by Pontiac (Patriotism is the natural consequence of having a free mind in a free society.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

So Lipscomb slammed on his breaks....

&&&
Perhaps he should have used his brakes instead.

Good grief! Was this piece written by a 4th grader? The style is awful, and the error I cited is one of at least three that I noticed in a very quick reading.


3 posted on 05/12/2007 6:50:18 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Duncan Hunter in 2008!)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
ran over a UW-Madison graduate student's head

UW-Madison.

Is that not an indicator that there is nothing in one's head in the first place? Liberal blather floods from that indoctrination center.

4 posted on 05/12/2007 6:53:25 PM PDT by 69ConvertibleFirebird (Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Thank Your Lucky Stars, young man!


5 posted on 05/12/2007 6:55:12 PM PDT by Daffynition (It is necessary to relax your muscles when you can. Relaxing your brain is fatal.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Not for long Mr Fancy pants bike rider man.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

I crush your head.
6 posted on 05/12/2007 6:55:29 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Greed is NOT a conservative ideal.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Having my head saved by a Giro helmet in 2003, I ping this story.

I merely bounced my head off the pavement, after slamming into a van. The doctor said the helmet saved my life.

The helmet was merely cracked.

I merely forgot thirty seconds before the crash—no concussion.

The behavior of the truck driver, ignoring the biker, is normal. The biker was not paranoid enough. Drivers often underestimate the speed of a bike, if they even notice them at all.

Of course, the biker had the right of way. That doesn't’t matter if you’re dead. A biker’s first goal is to stay alive. Speed is secondary—or tertiary.

7 posted on 05/12/2007 7:41:41 PM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner (Your children become what your are.)
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To: Forgiven_Sinner
When I was 15 years old I had my first experience as a pallbearer for a church member my age who would have lived had helmets been available and customary to wear in the early 1960’s. He went over the handlebars of a bicycle and thought he was just scraped up a little. He died of a brain hemorrhage.
8 posted on 05/12/2007 7:57:42 PM PDT by Dumpster Baby ("Hope somebody finds me before the rats do .....")
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

I have a Giro sitting right in front of me on my desk. I never ride without it however, if someone decides to open a car door on me as they drive by I am not sure the helmet is going to help.


9 posted on 05/12/2007 8:04:22 PM PDT by trumandogz
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To: Dumpster Baby

Having spent some time as a first responder/emt … anyone riding a bike (motorcycle) and not wearing a helmet … anyone driving in a car (van, truck) and not wearing a seatbelt, would, in my opinion, be a stupid person.


10 posted on 05/12/2007 8:06:18 PM PDT by doc1019 (Fred Thompson '08)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Somebody had better not tell me all the ridiculous helmet laws are justified because this one person was saved.
11 posted on 05/12/2007 8:10:06 PM PDT by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon))
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To: DCPatriot
Its better than being a quadripelgic for the rest of your life - or dead. There's no excuse for riding a bike without noggin' protection. A well made helmet is a definite lifesacer.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

12 posted on 05/12/2007 8:23:49 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: DCPatriot

Well if making someone wear a $50.00 helmet will save the state $250,000.00 in medical bills then I am all for it.


13 posted on 05/12/2007 9:04:46 PM PDT by LukeL (Never let the enemy pick the battle site. (Gen. George S. Patton))
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To: LukeL
Well if making someone wear a $50.00 helmet will save the state $250,000.00 in medical bills then I am all for it.

Not a good example because it applies to **everything** that will save "the state" money. High fat foods - ban them. Not exercising every day - fine him/her until he/she does, etc. The problem is that "the state" is WAY too involved in our lives, transferring money from you and me to others, in most cases against my will. Charity is one thing but forcing me to pay for anyone and everyone's stupid choices is another.

14 posted on 05/13/2007 10:49:59 AM PDT by 69ConvertibleFirebird (Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.)
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To: LukeL
Well if making someone wear a $50.00 helmet will save the state $250,000.00 in medical bills then I am all for it.

The math doesn't work that way. It's Thousands of people wearing $50.00 helmets and all bearing a small diminshment of their normal lives, each for the lost money and for the helmet, that saves the state the "$250,000.00" for the singular incident. Add that to all of the other diminishments, and one starts to get some genuinely burdonsome diminishments of life and liberty. Add further that some portion of accidents, including fatal ones will be made *more* likely by wearing of the helmets, and you further diminish the return.

Personally, in this particular circumstance, I think the trade-off still is a good one, but it's a whole lot less clear-cut than your example.

15 posted on 05/14/2007 8:29:47 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: DCPatriot

I agree with you about ridiculous helmet laws. As a neurosurgeon at a busy trauma center, it is always a wonderful feeling for me to be able to call the transplant team for another brain-dead, non-helmeted organ donor. Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing less of them these days because of the helmet laws. You are right on target with your criticism of the idiotic suggestion that people should be made to wear helmets. I think it is ethically and morally wrong to sentence thousands of organ recipients to death because of a lack of organ donors. I think the government should pay cyclists, skateboarders, and especially motorcycle riders to stop wearing those stupid helmets so that many more deserving people can recieve the gift of their precious organs. Down with helmets!


16 posted on 05/16/2007 9:48:23 AM PDT by brain_doc
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To: brain_doc
It's hard to tell if you were typing with your tongue firmly in your cheek...but I submit that your example is a very good one.

I would rather several people in desperate need of a transplant be saved than trying to save a person from injury by forcing them to wear seatbelts and/or helmets.

17 posted on 05/16/2007 10:25:44 AM PDT by DCPatriot ("It aint what you don't know that kills you. It's what you know that aint so" Theodore Sturgeon))
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To: goldstategop

More lives would be saved if bicycle helmets were not designed to be so stupid-looking as to be an embarrassment to wear (”Look at me! I’m a moron with a giant fluorescent peach pit on my head!”).


18 posted on 05/16/2007 10:46:41 AM PDT by Sloth (The GOP is to DemonRats in politics as Michael Jackson is to Jeffrey Dahmer in babysitting.)
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To: DCPatriot

My “Modest Proposal” was every bit as serious as Jonathan Swift’s. And in all seriousness, I do believe that even stupid people deserve to live full and happy lives. Thus “ridiculous” laws to help protect them, if they don’t have the sense to do it themselves. Anybody who compares a $50 helmet to the value of a human life qualifies as “stupid” in my book.


19 posted on 05/16/2007 1:45:39 PM PDT by brain_doc
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To: Sloth

Not sure if you’ve been helmet shopping recently, but there are plenty of “cool” helmets available. They range all the way from WW II Gestapo helmets to giant fluorescent peach pits. Choose your helmet, make your statement! Again, it amazes me that fashion is somehow more important than life and health... but I guess by now I shouldn’t be, given that people undergoing brain surgery are often unconcerned about the risks of the operation but completely freaked out that their hair will be shaved. These humans are crazy!


20 posted on 05/16/2007 1:45:46 PM PDT by brain_doc
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