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Newsroom Chapter Blog
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Mar
24
3/24/2009 9:42 AM
 This week has been an interesting and somewhat strange news week already, and it’s only Tuesday. From India’s $2,000 Nano car to Japan beating us at our own game in the World Baseball Classic, it can only mean one thing: It’s time for Tuesday Trivia. Inspired by 2 items in the news this week, my train of thought has taken a winding path, but it has arrived at this week’s trivia question.
Item One: Bicycles don't usually make the national news, but when Lance Armstrong breaks his collarbone during a race and Matt Lauer has a collision with a deer while cycling, it certainly grabs my attention. Especially since the nice weather has allowed me to return to my bicycling ways. I myself, while riding my bike just last week, witnessed someone take a nasty spill at our local park, only furthering my hypochondriac-like fears of bicycle injury.
Item Number Two: To a die-hard sports fan like me (or anyone with a pulse), March Madness is…what’s the word…oh yeah…intense. For instance, Mizzou’s scrape of a win over Cornell was stressful enough to cause my heart to skip two (or ten) beats as I suffered through the anxiety known as the last 2 minutes of the game. And then to make it worse, the media (and now me…I apologize in advance) had to bring up the haunting similarities to the ‘95 UCLA buzzer beater that is a long way from being forgotten. My heart nearly stopped. And while this is no joking matter, it is not entirely out of the question. Just ask the basketball fan at last month’s Mizzou/Kansas game whose life was saved by an Automated External Defibrillator (AED).
Choo choo…train of thought finally arriving…Bicycle accident injuries and cardiac arrest are both more common than we think. Of these two issues, which happens more frequently?
ANSWER:
Each year, bicycle related accidents are the cause of 700 deaths, while sudden cardiac arrest claims a staggering 325,000 lives. So while it may appear obvious that the answer is cardiac arrest, I’ll admit, this is a bit of a trick question with no clear or easily explained answer. Here’s why…
Because bicycle injuries are more frequent than bicycle deaths, and reports aren’t filed for scraped knees, it’s hard to say just how many actual bicycle accidents happen each year. If you ask the neighborhood kids though, chances are they will have better stats than any survey could find.
On the other hand, we do know-because each case is severe- that someone suffers from cardiac arrest every 2 minutes, and the death rate is equally high. So while instances of the two happening are probably similar in number, the death rate difference between the two is staggering? Why? Because there are an abundance of basic and accessible bike safety precautions available to people-like helmets and first aid tips.
So if we had a so called “band-aid” or helmet for cardiac arrest patients we could save more lives? Here’s the catch…we do. It’s called the Automated External Defibrillator (AED). And while it won’t necessarily prevent like a helmet can prevent a head injury for a cyclist, it acts as a band aid and can “patch the injury” until further medical attention can be taken. And it’s certainly just as basic and accessible. If as many people knew about AEDs as the number of people that knew about bike helmets, our answer today wouldn’t have been quite so complex.
And boy, was that complex. So to be honest, I don’t even know the answer to today’s trivia question, but I do know that if you get the word out and get people trained, preparedness saves lives and that is the real answer to today’s complex and slightly trick trivia question.
Thanks for reading today! Make sure you join us next week for the final edition of Red Cross Month: Tuesday Trivia with Lindsey.
Until next time,
Lindsey
Lindsey Weber is the Marketing/Communication Intern for the St. Louis Area Chapter.
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