Why wear a bicycle helmet....?
Posted by
IB ContributorMarch 30, 2007 7:35 PMThe doctor who became the patient.
Claudia Osborn had been practicing medicine as an osteopathic doctor for about two years when she made a big mistake. Claudia was on her bicycle, enjoying a summer ride, when a young man lost control of his car-hitting Claudia and sending her flying over the hood of his car. Claudia was not wearing her helmet!
As a result of her bicycle accident, Claudia suffered a traumatic closed-head injury, leaving her without her normal stamina, and without her short-term memory. In addition to these problems, Claudia had to deal with the fact that she could not even manage and organize the most basic activities of her daily life.
After nine months, and determined to regain her life and her medical practice, Claudia enrolled as a trainee in the Brain Injury Day Treatment Program at the New York University Medical Center in Manhattan. Living apart from her family for over 15 months Claudia steadily progressed through two sessions of rehabilitation, relearning skills most of us take for granted.
Even though Claudia retained the body of medical knowledge she had learned and practiced pre-injury, she could not readily apply that knowledge in a developing medical situation. And, six months into her program Dr. Claudia Osborn was devastated by the news that due to the severity of her closed-head injury, she would be unable to return to her successful medical practice. However, with the assistance of all she learned at the rehabilitation program, Dr. Claudia Osborn is working in a part-time teaching position as an associate clinical professor at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Dr. Osborn has chronicled her struggles, and her victories, through many challenges in her recovery in her book Over My Head, Claudia L. Osborn. Needless to say, Dr. Osborn now advocates that everyone wear a helmet when riding a bicycle!
The CDC has named March as 'Brain Injury Awareness Month'. Each year approximately 100,000 people die from a traumatic brain injury, and more than 500,000 are permanently disabled.
If you have questions about a head or brain injury claim call me for a discussion. If you have been injured by someone negligence, I'll explain your rights to you.