BURRILLVILLE – We are at the summer season halfway point and it’s very important that kids participating with outdoors wheeled sports activities always wear helmets when riding skateboards.
Head injuries are common when kids don’t wear helmets while doing stunts and performing tricks on their skateboards, and unfortunately that can directly impact young lives well into their adulthood. Head trauma can cause seizures and headaches/migraines as well as memory loss and paralysis for your entire life. Daily routines and functions can become very hard to accomplish as you get older too. Injury prevention is a simple thing to do if you pay attention to what could possibly happen to you if you do not take proper precautions when participating in wheeled sports activities as a child. If it can potentially happen, chances are probable that it could it happen, so playing it safer is always the best pathway to take.
Skateboarding should be done in designated skateboard parks or areas that are away from busy streets and roadways in and near your neighborhood. Have fun, but please play it safe. Always wear a protective helmet when skateboarding kids.
Jim Weicherding is a Burrillville resident, and the founder and creator of an award-winning traffic safety effort Seasons of Safety. Weicherding contributes kids’ coloring cartoons, which can be printed and used to help parents discuss safety issues with their children. He has a long list of police officers and firefighters in his family and has worked with law enforcement and firefighters in a creative public safety capacity for more than two decades.
