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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!”).
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.
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!
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