Skateboard head injury: ‘So much blood’
Two skateboarders are in Waikato Hospital from two separate incidents over three days, prompting pleas to use safety gear this summer.
Yesterday morning a 7-year-old boy broke his leg when he fell off his skateboard at a skate park in Raglan. He is in a stable condition.
The second incident involved a 15-year-old teen who is in a serious condition after falling off his skateboard on the Tauranga Harbour Bridge.
Tony Arnold, the marina’s general manager, was called to the harbour bridge on Thursday after the first crash.
Arnold arrived to see the 15-year-old boy lying there, surrounded by blood and worried friends.
‘‘There was so much blood. I rushed over to see what had happened. I saw all this blood coming out of his ear,’’ Arnold said.
‘‘I’m a dad. It could’ve been my son.’’
The 15-year-old had been hurtling down the cycleway on the bridge on his skateboard and was apparently going pretty fast, Arnold said.
The teen hit a small pebble, and was flung forwards from his skateboard into the concrete wall.
‘‘I was called because I had first aid, but there wasn’t much I could do to help him. We were just trying to keep him still. The kid kept on wanting to get up and move. At one point he was up on all fours, but then he slipped in all the blood.’’
Although it didn’t take the ambulance long to arrive, it seemed like an eternity, Arnold said.
The teenager didn’t seem to have suffered much by way of other injuries, but a head wound like that seemed very serious.
‘‘We didn’t know how to balance it. Should we be letting him bleed with all that blood, or should we hold the absorbent pads up and keep all that blood in his head? We didn’t know what to do.’’
So they just waited. Arnold was terrified, and kept thinking of his own 19-year-old son and how this could have happened to him, or anyone.
Arnold urged others to think about safety when out having fun – a helmet in this instance.
Figures from the Safekids website show 140 children are hospitalised each year from skateboard accidents. ACC paid out almost half a million dollars for skateboarding injuries last year.
New Zealand law requires skateboarders using the road to wear a helmet. They face a $55 fine for not wearing one or not having it securely fastened.
New Zealand and Australia are the only two countries in the world to enforce a mandatory helmet law. But most skateboarders in New Zealand are pedestrians, according to the NZ Transport Agency. Its website advises skateboarders to use the footpath, or a skate park.
It also offers guidelines for apparel – wear a helmet and safety gear such as wrist guards, elbow and knee pads, and closed shoes and brightly coloured clothing.
And finally – to practise riding skills away from traffic.
A Timaru mother, Gemma O’Connor, recently told Stuff her children visited the local skate park five times a week, and only a third of all the children there were wearing helmets.
She was appalled, and spoke out after an 18-year-old was hospitalised with injuries suffered at the skate park. Children who witnessed the incident were distressed.
O’Connor’s takeaway message?
Wear a helmet.