It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Wear your stupid seat belt |
In medical school, I just finished eight weeks of surgery. As part of my surgery rotation, I did four weeks of trauma surgery. The trauma team is the bunch of surgeons that takes care of people who suffer bad trauma - stuff like car accidents, falls and gun shot wounds.
Here’s what I learned: wear your friggin’ seat belts.
I sound like a prude, but I’m not kidding.
Here’s a story. A couple of young guys (mid 20’s) were in a car accident in which their car hit a tree. One of them was wearing his seat belt, and the other was not. I’m not making this up. The one who was not wearing his seat belt…let’s call him Mike…broke his pelvis, one of his thigh bones, a couple of ribs, and his neck.
That’s the shitty part - his neck. He had a very significant spinal cord injury, and he’s now a quadriplegic functionally. By the time I joined the team, he had already been in the hospital for 6 weeks, and he was there the whole four weeks I stayed with the team. He had some motion of his upper arms, and a little bit of trunk motion, but that was about it. He had one of those metal “halo” things that people get for unstable neck fractures. It’s basically a metal circle that’s attached to your head by several pins into your skull, then secured to your chest, so that your head can’t move at all. It allows the neck to heal as much as it’s going to. He also had a hole in his neck in case he need to be intubated again, a tube into his stomach for feeding, and a tube through his abdomen into his bladder for peeing. His muscles were painfully spasming and cramping. He was also getting pressure sores on his butt, both heels, and both elbows. The pressure sores that bedridden people get are one of the most awful and intractable parts of being bedridden. If any of you have seen (or smelled) decubitus ulcers, you know what I’m talking about.
It’s a very sobering thing to every day look into the eyes of a person who is slowly beginning to understand that he will never walk again. He will never sit up without help again. He will never tie his own shoes again. Hell, he may not ever wear shoes again. He will never pick up his 8 month old daughter again. He will never make love to his wife again. He will never get himself a drink of water again. He saw me come and go to my normal life every day, but it will be months and months, if not years, before he ever leaves the very building he entered the day of his accident. And then, when he does leave the hospital, it will be to go to a nursing home. At the age of 26.
Shit, man. Life is so cruel sometimes. I know it sounds a little melodramatic, but this is a real guy, just an average person like you and me. He worked on a hog farm. He has a very pretty wife and a (now) 9 month old daughter. They came to visit him a lot, and his wife would put his daughter up in his lap, and she would wiggle and crawl around the way babies do. He would smile and sometimes cry, but he couldn’t put his arms around her. This is his life now, and there’s no way out for him, no way for him to change it. He just has to deal with it the best he can.
Many evenings I came home and cried.
The other guy that was in the accident…let’s call him Steve…also came to visit Mike a lot. When I first joined the team, Steve was in a wheelchair because of a broken ankle sustained in the accident. Then he came to visit using crutches. Then he got his cast off, and he was using just one crutch. He would chat with Mike and his family about his physical therapy sessions to get the mobility back in his ankle.
Seat belts.
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Thanks, Tracy. It’s amazing what a little common sense and foresight will do, and also what a lack of it will do.
Poor guy, poor wife and poor daughter.
I used to not wear my seatbelt–it seemed so confining. Then those “You could learn a lot from a dummy” public service announcements really got to me. I also remember the crying Indian who after seeing all of the pollution, turns to the camera and we see a single tear fall down his cheek. ( Now it seems so emotionally manipulative and melodramatic. Yet, it struck a chord with people at the time. People didn’t have a cynical response to it.)
Sometimes these images and simple messages can be so stirring and compelling. How do we get images and messages like that out about what Bush and his hacks are doing? Are any of the ads from moveon.org or any other group getting on the air anywhere?
Comment by Laura — 7/1/2005 @ 10:06 pm
I work as a DUI counselor for a DUI treatment facility…If I could add one thing to all of you out there, whatever your political affiliation, it would be this:
BOOZE AND AUTOMOBILES DON’T MIX!
I am sickened at least once a month by having to write “DECEASED”
on an active client’s chart…I had to do that today. I’m writing through the tears…Try to have a happy, SAFE Fourth of July weekend, folks.
Comment by mike — 7/2/2005 @ 12:05 am
Yeah, well… Can’t get much lower than drink driving…
Had loads of public safety adverts, recently, some of which were rather deep and striking…
Don’t drink and drive
LOOK before crossing the road
Things like that. But I don’t even know anyone who used to not wear a seatbelt. The “seatbelts = a must” thing had a LOT of publicity in England, apparently, and it stuck.
Motorcycles don’t have anything like that, though. My mum’s best friend broke both legs, and lost one completely in an accident that was entirely the car driver’s fault.
It’s a shame we don’t have as much work being put into making cars safe as there is into making them look more flashy.
Comment by HareTrinity — 7/2/2005 @ 1:38 pm
Learn from a dummy: wear your seat belt
Tracy over at Irregular Times takes a moment to remind us all why wearing seat belts is so important.
It’s a very sobering thing to every day look into the eyes of a person who is slowly beginning to understand that he will never walk again. He wil…
Trackback by IO ERROR — 7/2/2005 @ 6:47 pm
Just Thursday I watched a guy hit a light pole going highway speed and I have to say that if he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, I probably wouldn’t have helped him climnb out his window. Check out the Honda Civic.
Comment by Sheldon Kotyk — 7/2/2005 @ 11:16 pm
Sure seat belts are ok in a front or back crash. But when you get hit on the side it become a death trap. I am actually alive because I wasnt using a seat belt. I saw the car coming to hit my side of the car; I was able to leap toward my cousin that was driving and save my live. Ha d I been using a seat belt I woulndt have been able to leap to safety; instead I would have been crushed between the belts and the car door.
Comment by pospon — 9/11/2005 @ 9:24 pm
I am a 26 year old male and I always wear my seat-belt. However if i choose to not wear one that should be MY DECISION. As a law abiding citizen I am furious about having my basic rights taken from me. As long as I am not bothering or hurting anyone else why does the government have to bother me. Not only does not wearing a seat belt cost you 75 bucks, but it gives an officer the right to search your car as well.
Bottom Line: I don’t break the law, never have and I don’t ever plan to, so leave me the hell alone!!! Decent, respectable human beings are being punished for things that idiots, and assholes do. I am not one of these people so don’t treat me like one.
Comment by todd — 12/30/2005 @ 3:06 pm
I agree that decent, respectable human beings are being punished for things that idiots and assholes do.
Because asshole idiots don’t wear seat belts, you and I as taxpayers are stuck with the bill for their long-term medical care. Driving is not a right; it’s a licensed privilege, and it’s entirely reasonable for conditions to be placed on that privilege that sustain the better social as well as individual good.
Pospon, do you know how many people are killed in side collisions? Do you know how many are killed in head-on collisions?
Comment by Jim — 12/30/2005 @ 9:49 pm
[…] Tracy over at Irregular Times takes a moment to remind us all why wearing seat belts is so important. It’s a very sobering thing to every day look into the eyes of a person who is slowly beginning to understand that he will never walk again. He will never sit up without help again. He will never tie his own shoes again. Hell, he may not ever wear shoes again. He will never pick up his 8 month old daughter again. He will never make love to his wife again. He will never get himself a drink of water again. He saw me come and go to my normal life every day, but it will be months and months, if not years, before he ever leaves the very building he entered the day of his accident. And then, when he does leave the hospital, it will be to go to a nursing home. At the age of 26. — Irregular Times […]
Pingback by Learn from a dummy: wear your seat belt - Homeland Security or Homeland Stupidity — 1/2/2006 @ 4:13 am
One of God’s greatest gifts that he gave to all of us is a brain. So start using it. Not wearing your seatbelt for whatever reason is STUPID. Do we really need money hungry laws passed to remind us of this. I have many more important things worry about every day than if the guy next to me is wearing his seat belt. If you are 18 years of age or older you are considered an adult, so start acting like one and take responsibilty for your own actions. If someone wears thier seat belt great, if they don’t that is thier choice as well.
Comment by Todd — 1/5/2006 @ 4:31 pm
One of God’s geatest gifts that he gave to all of us is a peacock. What? You don’t have yours? I’d talk to your mom and dad then, cause they must have it somewhere.
Seriously, one of the greatest things we have in our modern civilization is medical insurance, which makes us all pay the cost when idiots don’t take basic measures to protect their health, and end up with very expensive injuries.
Get it? It does matter to me if you don’t wear your seat belt. I have to pay for your lifetime of medical expenses if you don’t.
Comment by France's Best Flugelhorn — 1/5/2006 @ 4:46 pm
It’s too bad that many people don’t get it. It’s not the wearing of the seatbelt that’s the problem, I agree that not wearing them is stupid. It’s the law! I wear mine most of the time. But with every law passed to protect us from us we sink deeper into a government controlled environment. Has anyone ever stopped to think that, if instead of offering to take care of everyone we went back to a time where personal responsibility reigned supreme, more people would do just that. Take personal responsibility. In those days if you were stupid enough to engage in risky behaviour you were shunned and if you were hurt or killed you were just understood to be stupid and others, especially moms, would tell you “don’t you dare do that, you remember what happened to ole whats his name”. But not today, we just pick you up mend you, pass more laws to protect you from you, pay for your stupidity and then pass some more laws. All the while people sit on the sidelines and insist that you obey these laws so they won’t have to pay for your stupidity. The real problem with this is now that we’ve entered the nanny stage and nobody wants to hold people personally responsible is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Once we have a national healthcare, coming soon, where will we draw the line to prevent others from engageing in what will be “new heights” of risky behavior. Will they pass a law to prevent me from eating buttered popcorn due to my high tryglicerides? Don’t laugh, it’s been suggested. How about we stop paying for stupidity and hold people accountable for their actions? It may sound a little cold hearted but it beats the alternative of continuing to pay more in insurance, which I might add continues to rise in the face of ever increasing law books. Add the ever increasing cost of automobiles with safety equipment in them, some of which has killed young children, and the greater number of public officials you need to enforce more laws because we still have other stupid acts which cause most of the accidents you want to help people get out of with only a scratch and. Well…I hope you’re getting the point. If you’re in favor of passing and enforcing more laws to protect people from themselves, regardless of how noble or fiscally sound it may be, just go ahead and loosen the grip you have on your wallet because the tab is gonna be a lot more than you ever imagined.
Comment by Tom — 5/22/2006 @ 2:09 am
What ever happened to those days before contracts were ever invented and when a man’s “word” was his “word?” Correct me if I am wrong, but was government established before this simple honorary lifestyle existed?
Comment by Diana — 2/22/2007 @ 1:57 am
I am in EMS and have been for the past eight years. Currently I am going on to advance my career by attending Nursing school. I agree with the article “Wear Your Stupid Seat Belt”, whole heartedly. WEAR YOUR SEAT BELT. It doesn’t hurt you and it may save your life. More people walk away from accidents from wearing seat belts than those who do not.
Comment by Stacie — 4/20/2007 @ 12:44 pm
Thanks for the comment, Stacie. When I read about New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, on a ventilator because he didn’t wear a seat belt at 90 mph, I thought about this thread.
Comment by Jim — 4/20/2007 @ 3:59 pm