The
Trauma Center at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville saves
lives. I have been a trauma surgeon at UT since the center was started 25 years
ago.
During that time, the center has cared for
more than 80,000 East Tennesseans severely injured in car crashes, motorcycle
crashes, falls, shootings and other unexpected events. Over 95 percent of those
injured survived because of the surgeons and physicians, nurses, techs,
pharmacists, chaplains and other members of the trauma team who are available
24/7.
Level One trauma centers have another job
besides helping injured patients: providing education about trauma prevention.
We know that the best way to have a good outcome from trauma is to never have
those injuries occur. We often can return the injured person to normal. With
some injuries, however, we save the patient, but they are left with permanent
disability. The most common injury that causes this is traumatic brain injury.
Once again this year, the Tennessee
legislature is considering a bill to repeal the requirement for motorcycle
riders over age 21 to wear helmets. Once again, as trauma-care professionals,
we are opposed to this repeal.
The trauma centers in Tennessee have testified
before the legislature many times over the past several years, presenting
scientific data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that
supports motorcycle helmet use. Studies in Arkansas and Texas demonstrated that
when helmet laws were repealed, helmet use fell in half and motorcycle deaths
rose by 20-30 percent. Conversely, when helmet laws were enacted in California,
Maryland, Oregon and several other states, motorcycle deaths dropped by one-third,
and hospitalization for brain-injured motorcyclists dropped by half.
Proponents of this bill choose to ignore or
discount the scientific data and talk about the proposed economic benefits of
helmet repeal or personal freedom of choice. They cite increases in motorcycle
registrations, motorcycle purchases and in tourism because of the desire to
ride without helmets. Economic data from Pennsylvania show some of this is
true. The data also show that the cost increases are greater than the economic benefit,
partly due to changes in law enforcement needs but also the increase in
health-care costs.
New, inexperienced riders are more likely to
have a crash. Without helmets, riders are more likely to have brain injuries
that are costly to treat, require rehabilitation and long-term nursing home
care, and eliminate the victim from being a taxpaying member of society.
Riders often state that if they are killed in
a crash because they are not wearing a helmet, that that should be their
choice. I support freedom from outside interference, as long as your personal
freedom does not impact that of others. Your death impacts your family. The
impact may be even worse when they learn that your brain injury was not fatal,
but left you unable to communicate, unable to care for or feed yourself, or
unable to live at home.
That impact is very hard on your family, but
it is also hard on trauma-care professionals like me, because we are the ones
who have to tell your family that you lived — but you will never again be the
person you once were.
Dr. Blaine Enderson
The Tennessean
Dr. Blaine Enderson is medical adviser for
emergency and trauma services at the University of Tennessee Medical Center and
professor of surgery at UT Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville.
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