No LOL Matter
It’s sad when you hear about deaths due to texting while driving. Dr. Frank Ryan recently drove off a California cliff while reportedly making a Twitter post about his dog.
We recently had a 22 year old patient come in from a bad motorcycle accident. Road rash all over the place. Wasn’t wearing a helmet. As we began to examine him, it became evident that he had a spinal cord injury. He had priapism and reduced rectal tone. His legs weren’t moving. MRI showed a T6-T7 injury.
It was even more sad learning how the injury occurred. He told the paramedics that he was riding his motorcycle at a high rate of speed using one hand to steer and using the other hand to talk on his cell phone. On a speeding motorcycle. He was making plans to meet a friend that evening to go out to the bars and “get some.” The only thing he “got” was a lot of IV medications, a neurosurgical consultation, and a hospital bed.
Now he’s forever more likely to “get a lot less” due to a lapse in judgment.
Is answering that message from your BFF this instant really worth the thought of dying … or of sitting in a wheelchair the rest of your life?
Don’t text and drive.
UPDATE AUGUST 28, 2010
The day after my original post and one of my first patients of the shift last night was a 21 year old young lady who gashed her head open when she was driving down the street at 40 mph and she hit a parked car … while she was texting.
The 22 year old didn’t think the wheelchair would happen to him. This patient didn’t think the crash would happen to her. No one gets behind the wheel and expects to get into a major car accident.
Someone just told me about Oprah’s campaign about texting and driving. Read about it.
It’s not a question of IF something bad will happen to you, only WHEN it will happen to you.
Don’t text and drive
We recently had a 22 year old patient come in from a bad motorcycle accident. Road rash all over the place. Wasn’t wearing a helmet. As we began to examine him, it became evident that he had a spinal cord injury. He had priapism and reduced rectal tone. His legs weren’t moving. MRI showed a T6-T7 injury.
It was even more sad learning how the injury occurred. He told the paramedics that he was riding his motorcycle at a high rate of speed using one hand to steer and using the other hand to talk on his cell phone. On a speeding motorcycle. He was making plans to meet a friend that evening to go out to the bars and “get some.” The only thing he “got” was a lot of IV medications, a neurosurgical consultation, and a hospital bed.
Now he’s forever more likely to “get a lot less” due to a lapse in judgment.
Is answering that message from your BFF this instant really worth the thought of dying … or of sitting in a wheelchair the rest of your life?
Don’t text and drive.
UPDATE AUGUST 28, 2010
The day after my original post and one of my first patients of the shift last night was a 21 year old young lady who gashed her head open when she was driving down the street at 40 mph and she hit a parked car … while she was texting.
The 22 year old didn’t think the wheelchair would happen to him. This patient didn’t think the crash would happen to her. No one gets behind the wheel and expects to get into a major car accident.
Someone just told me about Oprah’s campaign about texting and driving. Read about it.
It’s not a question of IF something bad will happen to you, only WHEN it will happen to you.
Don’t text and drive
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