By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

After five kids, four of them boys, Mom was used to the sight of blood, but this time it was different: There was more than usual and it was everywhere.

That day started like most school days on Flamingo Street. Some kids caught the big yellow school bus; other kids rode their bikes; us Ryckeley boys, we just walked.

We’d walk out the back door, down around the swamp in the back yard, up past the fishing lake with the rope swing, jump over Cripple Creek, veer way around the Haunted Forest, cut through the secret path behind Candi’s house and get to school in about 20 minutes, long before the yellow “Loser Cruiser” got to the front door of Mount Olive Elementary.

Older Brother Richard and Big Brother James always walked way out in front of Twin Brother Mark and me, far enough that they wouldn’t be seen walking with us, but not too far that they couldn’t keep an eye on us. Lot of bullies lurking around our neighborhood, you know.

Today we hurried to school, not because we were afraid of the bullies, and not because it was mystery meat Friday. Nope, today was Neighbor Thomas’s birthday, and old Mrs. Crabtree said we were gonna have a party.

Right after lunch Mrs. Crabtree’s fifth grade class had recess, and as usual we got beaten by the kids from Gloucester Street in dodge ball. After recess we went back to the classroom and had Thomas’s party.

That’s when he told us his mom and dad had bought him a Blue Streak bike for his birthday. Everybody knew that a Blue Streak bike could jump anything: trash cans, mail boxes, and probably even parked cars. Thomas said that if we came over after school, he’d let us watch as he tried to jump the bushes at the end of his driveway.

For the rest of the day I stared at the clock above the chalkboard, trying to push the large second hand around; clocks move slower if you watch them, you know. It’s got something to do with the powers of the universe.

The school bell finally rang, and we all ran home to watch Thomas try to jump the Blue Streak over the bushes.

Thomas got his bike out of the garage, Twin Brother Mark got a trash can out of ours, and I got a piece of plywood from the vacant lot across the street. We set the trash can down on its side and made a ramp out of the plywood.

Thomas rode past our house up to the top of Flamingo Street, turned around and peddled as fast as he could toward the ramp. When Thomas passed me, he was going so fast he was just a blue blur with blonde hair blowing in the wind.

Thomas hit the ramp, flew over the bushes and over the driveway, and for one brief instance we all cheered. That is, until he crashed into the bushes on the other side.

When the front wheel of the Blue Streak hit the bushes, Thomas flew over the chopper handlebars and hit his head on the curb. Blood poured everywhere.

Thomas’s mom had gone to the grocery story so we carried him, crying and bleeding, to the one person we knew was an expert on patching up broken kids: my mom.

One look at the four-inch cut on Thomas’s forehead, and Mom helped him into the car and drove to the hospital. Fourteen stitches later, Thomas was as good as new, more than I could say for the Blue Streak.

Thomas would have been spared serious injury if he only had a bike helmet on. His only worry would have been a busted bike rather than a busted head.

Back in that day, Thomas had a good excuse for not wearing a bike helmet, unlike the kids riding the streets today: They hadn’t been invented yet. Nowadays, everyone knows about bike helmets and car seats, but some still choose not to use them.

Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Martin Eichelberger, president and founder of Safe Kids, said at the National Safe Kids convention in Washington last week, “We already have the best doctors, the best hospitals, and the best medicine in the world. With all of those resources, we still can’t change the outcome of a single patient who is involved in a fatal car crash.

“The outcome is always the same: Either a tragic death or a life that’s changed forever. Unfortunately I have seen it too many times.

“No, what we need to do is to work on something that we CAN change, something we all can put our efforts into. We need to work on prevention. There is a vaccine for the unintentional injuries that happen to our children: It’s called Safe Kids.”

Safe Kids is the only national organization that is solely dedicated to the prevention of unintentional injures in children.

It now celebrates its 15th year, and over those 15 years, through education and hands-on training, it has seen a decline of injury deaths in children 14 and under by 40 percent.

Safe Kids has a presence in 16 different nations on every continent, worldwide.

In Austria Safe Kids is called, “Grosse Schuetzen Kleine.” Translated, it means, “Big ones take care of the little ones.”

If all the big ones took care of all the little ones in this country, unintentional injury wouldn’t still be the number one killer of children.

If you need to have your car seat inspected to make sure it’s installed correctly or would like information about bike helmets and injury prevention, please contact Fayette County Environmental Health Department, the lead agency for Fayette County Safe Kids, at 770-631-0743 and ask for Robert Kurbes.

Or if you’d like, you can e-mail me at saferick@bellsouth.net. For the last 10 years, I too have been a proud card-carrying member of Fayette County Safe Kids.

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