COLLEGE STATION, Texas (March 31, 2008) – Medical students at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine will be helping to ensure the safety of local children by giving away free bicycle helmets Saturday, April 5. The helmet giveaway will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wal-Mart Supercenter east entrance on Briarcrest Drive in Bryan.

Free helmets will be available to any child in need. Medical students will be on hand to properly fit the helmets and present a safety presentation every half hour. They will have a decoration booth on-site so recipients can decorate their new helmets. Information on free and low-cost health care in Bryan-College Station and the Children’s Health Insurance Program will also be available.

The bicycle helmet giveaway is part of a statewide effort – Hard Hats for Little Heads – launched 14 years ago by the Texas Medical Association (TMA). The program is designed to educate Texas children and their parents about how to prevent head injuries by wearing helmets when bicycling, in-line skating, skateboarding and riding scooters.

The event is sponsored by the Brazos County Health Department in conjunction with the TMA and the TMA Foundation.

On average, 250 children in the United States under the age of 14 die each year because of bicycle crashes. Another 300,000 children are treated in emergency rooms for severe head injuries. Many of these accidents could have been prevented if the children had worn bicycle helmets. 

Head injuries are the most common cause of death and serious disability from bike crashes. Although research shows that helmets can reduce the risk of head injury by as much as 85 percent, only 40 percent of cyclists wear one when they ride.

Since TMA’s Hard Hats for Little Heads program began, physicians and medical students have given away more than 35,000 free helmets to Texas children.

Contact: Nathalie Nguyen, TAMHSC-COM TMA President, nnguyen@medicine.tamhsc.edu