BROOKINGS – Mike Kervin never bicycles without his helmet. It’s a precaution he takes not only for himself, but those around him, loved ones and strangers alike.
He was wearing his black Bell helmet last week when he was involved in a bike vs. car accident. The right front of the helmet is now covered in dents and depressions that could easily have been his skull, he said.
Kervin believes the helmet saved his life, and he wants everyone to learn from his experience.
“Parents that let their kids ride without helmets, it just scares me. I don’t think they’re thinking ’cause kids will take chances on bikes at intersections and crosswalks,” Kervin said.
“It doesn’t take much to have a head injury.”
Safety first and always
Kervin, 65, is a longtime helmet user.
“I’m actually pretty loyal to Bell because my motorcycle helmet when I was in high school and in the service was a Bell,” Kervin said, adding he thinks they’re good quality and affordable.
He started bicycling for exercise in college and currently bikes about 13 miles a day average to keep in shape for his active lifestyle.
“I referee youth soccer and high school soccer and then hunt as much as I can, so this also is a way to basically stay in shape,” Kervin said of bicycling.
He talks about safety a lot.
“I teach hunt safety class to kids, so I’m always stressing safety, safety,” Kervin said.
That includes bicycle safety in an informal setting.
“I’ll ride my bike to the games quite often and I’ll see kids riding and I’ll ask them ‘Where’s your helmet?’ ‘Oh, I don’t need a helmet,’ (they’ll reply). ... ‘Oh, yes, you do,’” Kervin said.
“And not just kids. If I see adults that I know, I’m like ‘Why don’t you wear a helmet?’ I got a guy who works for me, he says, ‘I never wear a helmet,’” said Kervin, who is director of operations for Advance. “I never ride without a helmet.”
Bad day
Kervin was biking south on the paved trail on the east side of 22nd Avenue South after 6 p.m. July 24. He was wearing his helmet, gloves and a bright red shirt.
“I always wear bright colors when I ride, just so you get another opportunity for someone to see you,” Kervin said.
As he came up to the exit for 3M that bisects the paved trail, he figures he was going 10 mph at most. That’s when his bike and a Cadillac driving on the exit collided. Because the accident is still under investigation, Kervin can’t talk about the details of the collision, but he did confirm he was thrown from his bicycle by the impact.
“I ended up in the next lane. When you fall – and I was a paratrooper in the service, so I know – when you hit the ground, you roll. The more you roll, it absorbs some of the energy,” he said. “So I hit and rolled and finally did stop.”
That’s when he started trying to figure out what happened. He doesn’t remember exactly how he landed, but he can take an educated guess by the evidence.
“If you go by the map left behind on my skin, my left shin was scraped on the outside, my left hand hurt, my right shoulder – that’s what I immediately grabbed because I knew something was wrong with the shoulder – there was a baseball-sized bump (on the collarbone),” he said.
He knew it was broken and wanted to go to the hospital.
Usually, Kervin always takes his cell phone with him on bike rides. That day, his phone was dead, so he told his wife, Carol, he was leaving it at home. When he got hurt, he had no way to call and let Carol know.
“Actually, it was the lady who I collided with (who offered her own phone). She dialed the number and I told Carol, ‘I’m here, I’ve been in an accident, I’m fine. Just come get me so we can go to the emergency room,” Kervin said.
A couple of witnesses moved his bike off the side of the road and kept asking if he was OK.
“It was the driver’s husband who said we probably should call the police and an ambulance. I think he called the police, and the police then called the ambulance,” Kervin said.
Although Kervin didn’t want an ambulance ride, the paramedic did ask him questions to make sure he was alert.
“I had to squeeze her hand, all that stuff,” Kervin said.
Tests confirmed the clavicle is broken and Kervin was scheduled to have surgery yesterday, July 31, to put plates and screws into his collarbone.
He found out his injuries could have been a whole lot worse.
Helmet saved him
Bicycle helmets have two layers: the foam liner is where the crash is managed and is usually molded in Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam, according to helmets.org/howmade online. The outer shell is hard and made of ABS plastic, Kevlar, polycarbonate, fiberglass or something similar, according to explainthatstuff.com online.
Kervin noted the outer shell is so hard it has no give when you push on it with your fingers. Yet, the helmet he was wearing has permanent indentations in the front right quarter.
Based on that, Kervin believes when he was thrown from the bike, he landed on the right side of his head and shoulder.
Nothing cushioned the shoulder, so the clavicle broke, but the helmet saved his head.
“It hit so hard that they commented that the inside of the helmet, the impressions from the inside of the helmet was on my head … you could see it very clearly, the inside impressions,” he said.
Even five days later, his head bore red marks in that area.
“I look at that and I tell people, if I didn’t have the helmet on, I could be dead,” Kervin said.
“You think about it: just directly below that is my shoulder, which ended up being broke. If it can break a bone, well, the skull is a bone and I’m sure there could’ve been some major injuries there,” Kervin said.
He knows if an impact like that didn’t kill him, he could have sustained severe brain damage.
“The quality of life would not be the same,” Kervin said.
“That’s why I always wear a helmet,” he said. “I won’t even ride the bike from the shed to the front driveway without a helmet on because all it takes is a half a second to fall.”
Safety first and always
Although he won’t be biking until his collarbone is healed, Kervin will definitely be getting a new helmet.
“Once you’re in a wreck, you never use that helmet again ‘cause the integrity’s gone,” he said.
The accident crystalized his determination to never ride without head protection.
“Definitely wearing a helmet is important,” Kervin said. “It’s more than just me that that helmet is protecting.”
Instead of his family, friends and co-workers learning he’d broken his collarbone, they could have been facing much worse news, Kervin said.
That helmet helped a total stranger: the woman who was driving the vehicle.
“Her trauma is also reduced” compared to what she would have borne if he’d been killed, Kervin said.
“The helmet can do a lot to save emotions and grief of a lot of people that you don’t think about,” Kervin said. “By wearing a helmet, not only am I helping protect myself, I’m also easing the mental burden on others.”
Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregsiter.com.
